


Driving With The Brakes On

by glitterburn (orphan_account)



Category: Dong Bang Shin Ki
Genre: Academia, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Opposites Attract, mechanic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-23
Updated: 2012-06-28
Packaged: 2017-11-08 09:26:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 58,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/441696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/glitterburn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mechanic and the academic. Long-distance relationship. Sceptical friends. This really shouldn’t work, but Yunho is determined that it will. Now he just has to convince Changmin that they can have forever. [Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/376025">0-60 in 3.5</a>.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Maybe the flowers were a mistake.

Yunho changes his mind three times between the car park and Changmin’s dorm. It had seemed like a good idea half an hour ago when he’d driven past the florist’s on the way to the university, but now he’s not so sure. It’s a bit weird to give a guy flowers. It’s even weirder when you’re giving the flowers to a guy you’ve not seen in almost a month after a one-off red-hot shagfest.

Yeah, the flowers are definitely a mistake. Yunho thought it was kind of a sweet gesture, but now he thinks it’s stupid. Especially as all these people—students, even—are giving him sidelong looks. They probably think he’s delivering the flowers. To a girl. Because the flowers are mostly pink. Those lilies that look a bit pornographic with their fleshy curling petals and sort of phallic sticky-up bit in the middle. Some cute flat things that look like daisies but they’re bigger and bright cerise. And roses, pale pink and pretty. The whole bouquet smells nice, too, and it’s wrapped in shiny paper with ribbons, and...

And this is a really moronic idea, and he doesn’t know what he was thinking, except he had this vague thought that it’d please Changmin.

Flowers. Guys don’t want to receive flowers. He should’ve bought a crate of beer instead.

Yunho pushes open the door to the dorms and strides in, looking for the numbered staircase that’ll take him up to Changmin’s apartment. He finds it, starts climbing, then pauses at the second floor. A couple of girls are having a conversation outside one of the doors. They both look at him, and so he goes over and holds out the flowers to the shorter of the girls and says, “These are for you.”

The girl takes the bouquet and stammers something indistinct while her friend squeals excitedly.

Pleased that someone will have some enjoyment out of the flowers, Yunho continues on his way. He reaches the fifth floor, goes down the corridor, then waits outside the door of apartment 516. This may just be the stupidest thing he’s ever done. More stupid than the time he’d decided to strip the engine of an old Leopard 2 when he was in the army. At least he’d been drunk out of his mind on that occasion.

Ugh, why is he so nervous? Changmin’s just a kid. No, a student. A cute student, cute and really fucking sexy and with the most gorgeous mouth he’s ever seen, but still, Changmin’s in school and that makes things different; or at least that’s what Donghae says and he knows these things because all of his girlfriends are college students.

Yunho raises his hand and knocks.

The door opens straight away. Changmin stands there. He’s wearing jeans and a white t-shirt under a linen blazer, and his hair is swept back and styled up a bit at the front, and it looks soft and touchable. There’s a faint wash of colour through his face and then his expression gets all composed and he presses his lips together.

Jesus, his _mouth_. Yunho stares at it, lust drop-kicking him in the gut, then he gathers himself and tips back his head, aiming for cool. “Hi.”

“Hello.” Changmin doesn’t move, doesn’t invite him in. Yunho wonders if he’s having second thoughts about this whole thing, and then Changmin says, his voice cracking slightly, “You made good time. The traffic must’ve been good. I hope you didn’t speed. Did you not bring a bag?”

“It’s in the car.” Yunho gestures towards the front of the building. “I wasn’t sure what you had in mind. I don’t like sleeping on a couch, but I’m not going to assume you have a spare bed, so...”

Changmin is staring, his initial wariness fading now. “Yunho,” he says, very softly, “come here.”

Yunho steps into the apartment, closes the distance between them and gets right into Changmin’s space. 

Changmin gasps, a tiny, sharp exhalation. Excitement flashes in his eyes, and then he drops his gaze, stares at Yunho’s mouth. “Come closer.”

Yunho kisses him. The first and last time they’d met, it’d taken him all afternoon to get round to kissing Changmin. He’s glad it didn’t take that long this time. 

Changmin tastes so good, as sweet and innocent and exciting as he tasted last month. He makes another of those muffled little noises, and the sound of it purrs right through Yunho. It’s really fucking sexy, and Yunho slides an arm around Changmin’s waist and pulls him even closer. Changmin breaks the kiss long enough to say, “Yes, oh God, yes,” and they’re straight back into it, hot and deep and messy.

Changmin grabs at him. They stumble backwards. There’s a wall. Yunho puts his hand out, stops himself from crushing Changmin. Changes his mind and presses right up against him, rakes his hand through Changmin’s hair and holds on.

The kiss gets hotter. Yunho grinds up against Changmin, pinning him to the wall. Fuck, he wants him right here and now, wants to do him hard. Yunho lifts his head and stares at the ruin he’s made of Changmin’s carefully styled hair, at Changmin’s fluttering eyelashes and his bruised wet mouth. Irresistible, every beautiful inch of him. Yunho kisses him again, pulls Changmin’s t-shirt up to touch his bare skin, then slides that greedy hand down beneath the waistband of Changmin’s jeans.

Changmin yelps and pulls back, flushed and breathless. “Wait. My friends.”

“Who?” Yunho had forgotten the existence of Changmin’s flatmates.

“Uh.” Changmin licks his lips, nods slightly. “Cho Kyuhyun and Choi Minho.”

Oh shit. An audience. Yunho pastes on a smile and half turns, hoping that his erection isn’t too obvious. Maybe if he presses against Changmin some more, because that way it hides the fact that they’ve both got massive boners. Or maybe that’ll just make it worse. Yeah, makes it worse. Yunho gives up, pours brightness into his smile. “Hi!”

Kyuhyun and Minho are standing frozen in the doorway to the living room. They look stunned. It seems as if it’s an unusual occurrence to have random guys barging into their apartment and sucking the face off their flatmate. Which can only be a good thing.

Yunho turns up the wattage on his smile and hopes he doesn’t look like a complete lunatic. Kyuhyun and Minho continue to stare. They don’t seem to have much in the way of conversation. Yunho isn’t sure what to do with the awkwardness, so he turns back to Changmin. “You want to go look at cars?”

Changmin lifts his chin, expression hot and hungry. “Not right now.”

Yunho blinks. _SEX!_ his brain shouts, lighting the word up in ten-foot neon letters. _SEX NOW! SEX WITH CHANGMIN! GET TO IT!_

“Where’s your room?” Yunho demands.

Changmin points at a door about four feet away. Four feet too far, in Yunho’s opinion. He seizes Changmin by the arm and hustles him towards it.

“Are you actually going to _carry_ him?” one of the flatmates asks in tones of disbelief, but Yunho doesn’t care. Hell yeah he’d carry Changmin, put him over his shoulder and drag him away if he had to, but that doesn’t seem necessary. Changmin can’t get into his room quick enough.

Yunho has the blurred impression of a neat space filled with books, but his peripheral attention is mainly on the bed. It’s narrow and has the same blue and green tonal squares duvet that Yunho has, which is either a coincidence or just kind of sweet. Not that he really cares about shit like duvet covers, because the rest of his attention is on getting Changmin naked as fast as possible.

They snatch at each other, kisses rough and urgent as they tear at their clothes, desperate to touch. Changmin makes frantic noises that burn through Yunho’s senses. He hurls Changmin’s blazer to the floor, where it gets trodden on.

“Linen creases really badly,” Changmin protests.

“Who the fuck cares.” Yunho yanks Changmin’s t-shirt over his head and shoves him onto the bed, following him down and hooking one leg across Changmin’s thighs, pinning him to the duvet.

Changmin bucks up against him. “Please.”

Yunho puts his hands all over Changmin; shoulders, chest, waist. Rubs his thumb through the narrow stripe of hair running from Changmin’s navel down below his jeans. Yunho kisses him, mouth first and then his throat, then a nipple, pink and tight and hard, and Changmin jerks and shivers and babbles, “Yes, yes, Yun _ho_ —” and his hands fist tight into the fabric of Yunho’s shirt.

“Want you naked.” Yunho gets Changmin’s jeans undone. Changmin arches off the bed to speed the process of removal, but Yunho can’t wait that long. He drags both jeans and underwear down to Changmin’s knees and takes a handful of Changmin’s cock, flexing his grip around it.

“Don’t,” Changmin gasps, a helpless note in his voice. His eyes close. “I won’t last. Oh God, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

“Are you kidding?” Yunho slides his hand up the length of silky-hard flesh. Changmin is leaking all over his fingers, tense and wet, the smell of him musky and hot. His hips work as he thrusts into Yunho’s grasp. He’s so fucking _needy_ , and God, he’s sexy; he’s so beautiful like this he takes Yunho’s breath away.

“You look amazing,” Yunho tells him. “Let me see you come.”

Changmin moans, thrashes around. “No, no, I want—I want...”

“C’mon, baby. Give it up for me,” Yunho coaxes, pumping Changmin’s dick with smooth, hard strokes that make Changmin quiver and rut up and moan like an absolute slut. “Oh yeah. I’ve been dreaming about you all this time.”

“What?” Changmin’s eyes open wide. His entire body goes rigid. He arches up, hanging, waiting—

“Oh, baby,” Yunho breathes. He works Changmin’s cock harder, faster, feels the orgasm coiling, and then Changmin makes a desperate sound and puts back his head. He cries out as he comes, his seed jetting thick and hot, and Yunho strokes him through it, voice hoarse and passionate as he says, “Like that, Changminnie, just like that...”

“Fuck.” Changmin crumples back onto the duvet. He’s trembling, his skin flushed with arousal and a delicious gleam of sweat striped down his chest amidst the spatter-trails of spunk. He laughs a little, looking embarrassed. “Oh God. I’ve never come so fast in my entire life. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise. You needed it. And it’s really hot to watch you get off.” Yunho leans down and licks at the glimmering patterns, Changmin’s taste warm and rich on his tongue. He’d forgotten how good this was, Changmin lying hot and sweaty beneath him, breathing hard and with his hands on Yunho’s shoulders, through his hair, the touch affectionate and demanding at the same time.

“Wait. I have tissues.” Changmin wriggles away and fumbles beneath the bed, returning with a clump of paper tissues grasped in his hand. He cleans himself off and tosses the scrumpled ball onto the floor.

Yunho smiles at him. “I’d have been quite happy to lick you clean.”

Changmin lowers his gaze, touches Yunho’s thigh, rubs at his cock through the denim. “Talking of which, can I... I mean, would you like me to suck you?”

It’s the way he says it, the same way he might say _May I interest you in a cup of tea?_ His accent is pure posh, and Yunho feels like a dirty rough boy grabbing at the pretty thing he can’t afford. The reminder of their differences does nothing to dampen his ardour; in fact, it does the opposite and makes Yunho even hornier.

“Say that again,” he growls, fixing his gaze on Changmin’s mouth.

Changmin blushes. He licks his lips, peeks up through the tumble of hair and the fluttery sweep of long eyelashes. “Would you like me to suck your cock?”

Fuck, yes, more than anything, but Yunho reins in the impulse. If that gorgeous mouth gets anywhere near his dick, Yunho knows he’ll shoot faster than Changmin did. Not quite the impression he wants to make, no matter how compelling the thought is of Changmin’s face covered in come.

“Let’s just get comfortable first, yeah?” Yunho finishes undressing Changmin, laying him out naked against the blue and green duvet.

“And you,” Changmin orders, chin lifting to give him a haughty look. “You’re wearing far too many clothes. It’s absolutely unforgiveable.”

Yunho grins and strips off. Changmin stares at him, sends hot, darting glances at his chest, his cock, back up to his face, and it reminds Yunho of their first meeting when Changmin had been over-heated and sun-dazzled and had stared at Yunho’s half naked body like he’d never seen anything quite so edible before. He’d tried so hard to be casual and surreptitious, but the end result was a blatant telegraphing of desire.

He’s doing the same thing all over again. Fuck, he’s adorable. Yunho has never gone for younger guys before, but since August he’s reassessed his stance and has come to the conclusion that it’s nothing to do with age and everything to do with Changmin himself.

“You’re so tanned.” Changmin sounds admiring, laying his hand on Yunho’s chest, pale skin against dark. He slides his fingers down, caressing the tan lines low on Yunho’s hips. “God, you’re gorgeous.”

Yunho thinks Changmin is more beautiful, with his indoor skin almost like milk and those big dark eyes and generous mouth and all the wariness that makes him lock down and the curiosity that makes him open up.

They kiss, warm and gentle; touch each other, rediscovering sensitive places and mapping new routes of desire. Changmin keeps reaching for Yunho’s cock; Yunho twists his hand away and punishes Changmin with a series of love-bites across his chest and up his throat. By the time Yunho licks into Changmin’s ear, making him squirm and laugh, breathless and excited, Changmin is ready to go a second round and Yunho is hard enough to pound concrete.

“Greedy,” Yunho teases, stroking Changmin’s dick.

“One of the advantages of being young.”

“I remember those days.” Yunho flips Changmin onto his back, tongue flicking over the pulse point just below his ear until he quivers and moans. “The advantage of being older is that I know what I’m doing.”

“Glad someone does.” Changmin bucks up, needy and demanding all over again. He gazes at Yunho. “Did you really dream of me?”

“Every night.” Honesty pricks him, and Yunho adjusts his answer: “Okay, maybe I didn’t dream of you every night, but I thought about you every night. You’re my favourite fantasy when I get myself off. Which I do kind of a lot recently.”

“Oh.” Changmin looks shy and pleased. “I thought about you, too.”

“You should’ve called sooner.”

Guilt lights Changmin’s expression. “I’m—”

“Don’t say ‘sorry’.” Yunho kisses him. “I’m here now. You’ve got me all week long if that’s what you want.”

“God, yes, yes.” Changmin winds both arms around Yunho’s neck and pulls him closer. Then he pauses, uncertainty in his eyes. “It’s not just because of the car. You do know that, don’t you?”

Yunho smiles. “Stop thinking so much, Changminnie.” He rolls Changmin onto his left side and spoons him. For a moment he enjoys the smell and warmth of him, the reality of holding Changmin naked in his arms again after so many weeks with just his imagination for company. He kisses Changmin’s nape, strokes his back, the dip of his waist, the sweep of his flank, the high, tight curve of his ass. Changmin has agreeably downy thighs, and Yunho tickles his fingertips up the back of Changmin’s legs and into the sweat-slicked warmth between.

Changmin makes a soft noise and parts his knees, lifts his right leg just a little. Yunho slips his hand between Changmin’s thighs, feeling hard muscle and the tender drag of flesh. He lets his hand rest there for a moment, then pulls free and traces upwards. His fingers follow the ripe swell of Changmin’s ass. He burrows into the crack, strokes through damp hair. Changmin pushes back, a sigh whispering out of him. 

“Baby,” Yunho says, urgency taking hold. “We need lube and stuff.” He has plenty stashed in his bag, but that’s in his car and he doesn’t want to stop this.

“Oh,” Changmin moans, “here, here—” and he scrawls up to his bedside table and almost pulls out the drawer in his haste. Onto the duvet he drops a bottle of lube and pack of condoms. Brand new, both of them. It’s flattering. Exciting.

Yunho kisses down Changmin’s shoulder, nips at the soft skin that curves into his underarm. Murmurs a slew of endearments and filth in dialect, knowing that Changmin won’t understand but trusting that he’ll feel the emotion behind the words regardless. He opens the bottle, squeezes out the slippery gel. Rubs it over his fingers and resumes exploring Changmin’s ass, enjoying the slick little sounds as he works a finger inside Changmin’s hole.

“Oh, yes.” Changmin goes all limp, the breath shuddering out of him. He turns his face against the duvet. A new tension seizes him, and he grunts and thrusts back, opening himself a little wider. “More.”

Yunho fucks him with two fingers, pushing harder into the smooth, tight grip. He can’t wait to climb inside and have that heat wrapped around his cock. Changmin tosses his head, stretching back. He groans, lifts his right leg again and hooks his foot behind Yunho’s knee. The position opens him up even more, and Changmin gets really dirty, grinding down hard on Yunho’s hand. He quivers with each thrust, Yunho’s fingers at just the right angle to hit that sweet bundle of nerves inside.

“Want you,” Changmin gasps out. “More than this. Give me your cock.”

Yunho takes his time, rolling on the latex and coating his dick with lube. Changmin moves against him, hot and restless. Yunho fits himself against Changmin, edges a little lower on the bed so they line up, and then he grasps the base of his cock to stop himself from shooting the moment he gets inside Changmin.

Because, God, he wants to. He wants to let loose every last drop of control and come right now, with just the head of his dick pushing into Changmin’s tight hole. “Oh, Changminnie,” he says, breath hitching as he slides in deeper. “Changminnie, oh.”

Changmin makes a choked, hungry sound. “More. All of it. Everything.”

Yunho arches into him, stroking all the way in. Changmin is tighter than a fist gripping him. Fucking fuck, but that feels incredible. Yunho forgets to breathe. He just holds still, buried balls-deep inside Changmin, and tries to imprint this moment in his mind forever.

“Please,” Changmin whispers. “Do me.”

Sanity returns, accompanied by a massive kick of lust. Yunho draws out, surges back inside. Changmin jolts, a gasp torn from him. They press closer, Changmin letting Yunho rearrange him to his satisfaction. Yunho snakes one arm beneath Changmin’s waist to keep him steady; the other hand he puts on Changmin’s right knee, holding his leg up and back, keeping his hole stretched open, all slick and ready.

Yunho fucks into him, keeping his pace strong and steady even though it’s killing him to go slow. Changmin jerks like a puppet with his strings cut, a slave to Yunho’s dictates, rapid breaths shivering out of him, his body hot and wet and running with the scent of musk and lust and need. He’s so fucking gorgeous, almost completely abandoned to pleasure, and Yunho can’t resist him.

He licks over Changmin’s shoulder blade, strokes the inside of Changmin’s thigh all the way up, then presses his fingers into the hollow of his hips. Changmin squirms and fights. Impaled on Yunho’s cock, he’s barely coherent. Sweat slicks his back, his nape; feathers of hair hang damp and curling. Yunho licks it, tastes the tang of salt and the freshness of Changmin’s skin. Nibbling at the long silky strands, he nuzzles up and catches at Changmin’s hair with his teeth, tugging at it as he shifts gear and drives into Changmin harder, faster.

“Oh _God_.” Changmin reaches back, grabs at Yunho’s thigh and scratches him. “Oh shit, oh fuck, that feels _so good_ , don’t stop, don’t you dare stop—”

Yunho rolls them over a quarter-turn so Changmin is facedown. The new position seats Yunho even deeper inside him, and Changmin snaps his head up from the duvet, his hair tousled in his face and his mouth open and gasping, and he snarls, “Yunho, Yunho, fuck me hard.”

“Yeah, oh yeah.” Yunho grinds into him nice and deep.

Changmin cries out, voice drowning in utter desperate pleasure. “More,” he urges, “Harder. More.”

Yunho shafts into him, darkness curling around the edges of his vision. The only thing of any meaning is the man he’s holding. He buries his face against the slick heat of Changmin’s nape, feels him shuddering as he ramps back to meet Yunho’s thrusts. 

The sounds that pour from Changmin’s lips are insanely hot. Yunho knew from their first meeting that Changmin was a wildcat when handled properly; he’s glad that nothing’s changed in the interim. Changmin is just as responsive, just as hungry; his demands are just as honest, and Yunho revels in the chance to fulfil them. “You wanna come, baby?”

Changmin flicks back his head, sweaty and wrecked. “Yes. Yes. God, Yunho, oh God.” His voice slides even higher as Yunho turns him again, grasps his cock, and jerks him off. “Fuck oh fuck oh— _fuck_.”

Yunho groans as Changmin flutters and clenches around him. “Changminnie, yeah. Milk my dick. Oh, you’re tight, baby. Gonna fill you up.”

“Do it, do it now,” Changmin begs, and orgasm shakes him apart.

Yunho pounds into him and unloads in a hot rush. He stifles his yell of ecstasy by taking a mouthful of the back of Changmin’s neck, all hot flesh and sweat-dampened hair, and it’s perfect, the most amazing thing he’s ever tasted.

Aftershocks of pleasure tingle across his skin, rock through his body. He doesn’t want to move. Changmin reaches back and takes hold of his hand, curling their fingers tight together. Cute. Yunho smiles against Changmin’s shoulder and presses a kiss to the bite-marks he’s left in the pale skin.

Changmin moans, a long, rumbling purr that ends on a snuffle of laughter. “I should have called you sooner.”

“Yeah, you should.” Yunho cuddles closer. He runs through all the permutations of teasing comments on how they need to make up for lost time, but he decides against all of them. It’s not important. What matters is how they go from here.

“Now,” Yunho murmurs, lips brushing over Changmin’s ear. “What now?”

Changmin turns his head and smiles. “Now we can look at cars.”


	2. Chapter 2

When he leaves the bedroom, Kyuhyun and Minho are still standing in the kitchen. Maybe they’ve been standing there the whole time and haven’t moved, though Minho seems to be a bit closer to the fridge. They have this air about them that Yunho recognises from customers who bring their vehicles in because one of the wheels is making a clonking noise and they think it’s the bearings when in fact the suspension is completely fucked. Their expressions when he tells them that the twenty thousand won job will actually cost three million won mirror the looks on Kyuhyun’s and Minho’s faces.

Changmin emerges from his room wearing a navy blazer rather than the crumpled linen jacket. He locks the door behind him. 

“Dude,” says Kyuhyun, “you’re _really_ noisy.”

Changmin presses his lips together like he’s embarrassed, but he’s not blushing. He’s got this glow about him that’s really sexy, and he flips his tousled hair and says, “Yeah.”

Yunho feels a bit bad then, so he says, “Sorry,” because this isn’t his apartment and these are Changmin’s friends and he doesn’t want this to be weird. “We can play music next time or something.”

“Or you could, y’know, be quieter,” Kyuhyun says.

Minho nudges him in the ribs and polite-smiles at Yunho. “Don’t mind him. It’s just that... Well, until today we didn’t actually believe you were real. Changmin’s been going on and on about his hot mechanic boyfriend but we just thought he was talking crap.”

 _Boyfriend?_ Yunho flicks a look at Changmin, whose ears have gone pink.

“We’re going out,” Changmin announces, not meeting anyone’s gaze. “To look at some cars. So I can buy one.”

“Fine,” says Kyuhyun. “Make sure you’re back before six. You said we were all going for dinner tonight. Is your not-fake boyfriend paying?”

Blushing furiously now, his head down, Changmin ushers Yunho out of the apartment before the conversation can deteriorate any further. 

“I don’t think Kyuhyun likes me,” Yunho says as they clatter down the stairs.

“He’s an economist,” Changmin says, as if this explains everything. “And he’s very smart. So smart it’s like he doesn’t have a ‘normal life’ filter. He just says what he thinks. You get used to it.”

“Right.” Yunho pauses, then just casually adds, “And I’m your boyfriend?”

Changmin comes to a halt at the top of the next flight of stairs and turns to face Yunho. He wears a hunted expression and looks both guilty and adorable. 

“I—I...” Changmin licks his lips, and that really should be illegal. “I might have talked about you a bit. A lot. And they might have ragged me about it. So I said you were my boyfriend. It doesn’t have to mean anything. You’re here now, right? And after we’ve found a car, we can split up. I mean, I can say that we’ve split up. That we argued about carburettors or something.”

“We don’t have to split up,” Yunho says.

“Oh.” Changmin stares at him, wide-eyed.

Amused, intrigued, Yunho moves closer and brushes at Changmin’s hair. Changmin jerks back against the wall, his breathing getting all skittery, his mouth softening on another exhalation. 

“Are you always this jumpy?” Yunho asks, pitching his voice low.

“No. Yes.” Changmin’s gaze stutters up until he meets Yunho’s eyes. He swallows. “It’s just when I’m with you.”

Yunho goes even closer. Tilts his head. “Why?”

“Because. Because.” Heat flushes Changmin pink. “I don’t know.”

“Because you want to jump me the whole time?”

Changmin moans. He looks like a cornered animal. Yunho saw some documentary once about cats or lions or something, where the female would get all shivery when the male approached her, and Changmin is kind of doing the same thing. It’s weird, but it’s incredibly flattering. And sexy. Yunho has had plenty of people tell him he’s hot, but he’s never had anyone react to him like this before. Changmin must be really sheltered.

They’re already standing far too close together. Yunho nudges closer still.

“Not here,” Changmin blurts out in tones that suggest _God yes, take me now, have me up against the wall, do me on the stairs_ , but maybe that’s just wishful thinking on Yunho’s part.

“I could eat you up,” Yunho says instead, and contents himself with a kiss on Changmin’s nose.

Changmin pulls away, tries to regain his equilibrium. “My mother always warned me about guys like you.” He smiles, but the wariness has returned, the defences Yunho thought he’d breached rising back into place. 

But that’s okay; Yunho has all week to work on Changmin’s defences. He grins. “You didn’t listen to your mum, huh.” He jogs down the staircase to give Changmin some space. “And anyway, I’m not that much of a bad boy.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

Yunho glances back. “So what did you mean?”

Changmin smiles, but shakes his head and stays silent.

The car park is to one side of the dorms, set beside a wide swathe of lawn with an artificial lake and a border of trees. In front of them is the campus, stretched out in a long sweep of buildings of concrete and glass and metal. Yunho looks at it, at Changmin’s home, and experiences a brief moment of disorientation. This isn’t his world. But then he tells himself _so what_ , and looks over at Changmin again, who’s staring at the red BMW as if it’s accusing him of all kinds of perversions.

Yunho thinks about what they did under and on and inside the BMW and goes around the car to open the door for Changmin.

“Thank you,” Changmin murmurs. He folds himself into the passenger seat, looking flustered, and casts a glance into the back seat. He does that thing with his mouth again, like he’s not sure if he should smile or be nervous, and then he just sits still until Yunho is in the driver’s seat and the keys are in the ignition. He waits until Yunho is pulling at his seatbelt, and then he says in a rush, “I’m not the guy you think I am.”

Yunho lets the seatbelt whirr back through his fingers. The metal tab clicks against the door.

Changmin swallows. Meets Yunho’s gaze. Tries again. “I’m not the same guy who did those things with you in the garage.”

“You look like him,” Yunho says, unwilling to let Changmin slip away from him out of some weirdly misplaced guilt or whatever’s prompting this attempt at denial or pre-emptive rejection—maybe not pre-emptive, since they were just fucking with as much abandon as last month—or whatever the hell this is. 

“You sound like him, too,” Yunho continues, and leans closer to whisper, “You even tasted like him just now when you were coming.”

Changmin jerks away, his hands clenching and unclenching in his lap. “You don’t understand.”

Yunho retreats from Changmin’s space and smiles. “You’d be surprised what I understand.”

Darting a look at him, Changmin exhales and slumps back into his seat. “I’m making a mess of this.”

“Trust me, you’re not.” Yunho puts on his seatbelt and touches the key in the ignition, but doesn’t turn it. “Don’t try to second-guess yourself. Or me, for that matter. Let’s just go with this and see where it takes us.”

Changmin nods, relief softening his features. “Okay. Sorry I got all... weird. It’s just— Never mind.” He shakes the thoughts from his shoulders and smiles, bright and brilliant. From his jacket pocket he withdraws a crumpled piece of paper; unfolded, it reveals itself to be a computer print-out. “This is a list of all the used cars I could find for sale within my price range.”

“Five million won, yeah?” Yunho scans the list, tapping at the fourth entry. “Not that one, it’s been up for sale for months now. I’m not having you drive around in a piece of crap.”

“My old car was a piece of crap.”

“A piece of crap with the good sense to break down near my garage.” Yunho twists in his seat and reaches into the footwell behind him to pull out an auto trade magazine. The pages are folded to the relevant section. He hands it to Changmin. “I’ve circled all the cars I thought might be worth a look. The ones that overlap with your list we’ll see first.”

Changmin is quiet as he compares the two lists. “There’s a couple right here. The Daewoo Prince and the 2006 Kia Soul.”

“Great. Call the Daewoo owner. We’ll see the Kia first; it’s at a dealers so we won’t have to wait for that.” He turns the ignition and the engine fires up. Changmin puts on his own seatbelt before he takes out his phone. Yunho checks the address of the Kia dealership, programs it into his sat nav, then pushes the magazine back across Changmin’s lap. True, it’s just an excuse to touch Changmin’s thighs, but Yunho refuses to feel guilty about that.

After Changmin has made the call to the Daewoo’s owner and arranged to visit later that afternoon, he sits in silence and stares out of the window. He doesn’t seem nervous anymore; just thoughtful. 

Yunho obeys the sat nav instructions and pays due attention to the road, more conscious of having a passenger than he’d be if he was out for a drive with Donghae or any other mate. It’s not just because Changmin is so tall, either. It’s not just because of the way Changmin rests his hand on the edge of the seat so Yunho brushes against him every time he changes gear. And it’s not the smell of him, that combination of cologne, shampoo, the warmth of Changmin’s skin and the lingering scent of sex. It’s none of these things and all of them and so much more, too; it’s the reality of Changmin sitting here beside him that makes Yunho hyper-aware. 

He watches the road and doesn’t speed. Drivers in Seoul are not quite as aggressive as drivers in Gwangju, but they still take every opportunity to cut up other cars, switch lanes without indicating, and leave it to the last second before deciding to take an exit. Usually Yunho would be just as bad as everyone else, but not when he’s got Changmin next to him.

The silence extends. Yunho wonders if he should turn on the radio. He glances across to see Changmin studying the trade magazine, flipping through the pages at random. Seemingly aware of Yunho’s attention, Changmin looks up and smiles. “Thank you for thinking of this. It’s really kind.”

Yunho shrugs. “You want a good car.” He gives himself a mental slap. Now the conversation has got going, he can’t think of anything to say.

Changmin looks down again. Turns a page. He bites his lip. 

Christ, he really has no clue how sexy he looks when he does that. Yunho drags his focus back to his driving and takes a deep breath. “I didn’t say thanks for the cheque. You didn’t need to send it.” He pauses for a heartbeat, flicks another look at Changmin. “I told you, the debt was clear.”

A little smile tilts the corners of Changmin’s mouth. “I imagine your business partner didn’t feel the same way when you told him.” 

Yunho laughs. “He called me a stupid asshole.”

“You’re not.” Changmin sounds fierce.

Pleased, Yunho says, “He’s called me worse things before.” 

True, that was usually with less reason than providing free repairs totalling one and a half million won, but Yunho didn’t care. It was his garage, or at least half of it was, and it’s not like Donghae would lose out financially. Yunho had covered the costs himself, and what he chose to do on his day off was no one’s business but his own.

Donghae disagreed, as he always did. He’d listened to Yunho’s vastly redacted story of the poor college student who’d needed assistance with his broken-down car, and then he’d said, “This student, was he what you would consider hot?”

“That didn’t affect my decision at all,” Yunho said.

Donghae had given him a look that clearly indicated he didn’t believe a word of it. “Bro, tell me, when you look up at the sign outside, does it say ‘Jung and Lee, registered charity?’ No, it does not, and so—”

“Okay,” Yunho said, “okay, he was cute. He was gorgeous. He offered me sex in exchange for repairs and I said yes, so we...”

“Don’t tell me.” Donghae had put his hands over his ears and scrunched his face. “I don’t want to know those kinds of details. And by the way, that’s just wrong, what you did. I mean, good for you and all, but it’s still wrong.”

“But bro, you gave Jessica’s car a free MOT in exchange for a date.”

“That’s different.” At least Donghae had the grace to look embarrassed. “She would’ve wanted to go out with me anyway. And she said she’d tell all her friends to come here, so...”

Yunho nodded. “So we both make exceptions.”

“No, dude— _I_ get to make the exceptions. Me, not you.” Donghae elbowed him in the ribs. “You’re the smart, sensible one. I’m the charming one. Let me have something, okay?”

“Your logic is fucked up.”

“As fucked up as your brain. You’ve had this stupid dopey expression ever since I got back, and I know it’s not because you’re pleased to see me. Tell me it’s not a permanent fixture, otherwise you can start wearing a paper bag over your head before you start scaring the customers.”

That had caught at him. Yunho sighed. “It’s not permanent. Just... Changmin made me happy for a day, all right? And he was gorgeous. Too good for me.”

Donghae squinted at him. “Fuck. If it’s not enough that he robs me of one and a half million won, that kid robs me of my best friend’s sanity, too. What a great guy he must be.”

“You’d like him.”

“Maybe if he paid his fucking bill.” There was a scowl on Donghae’s face, but behind it he looked a little worried. “When are you seeing him again?”

“He hasn’t called.” Yunho tried to make light of it. “I gave him my number, and the garage number was on the receipt. I guess he’s busy. Exams or whatever it is students do at this time of year.”

Donghae stared at him. “It’s the holidays.”

“Yeah,” Yunho said, knowing that he was making excuses. “But Changmin is a Master’s student. I think it’s different for them.”

A look akin to pity crossed Donghae’s face. “Sure. You’re probably right. He’ll call you soon.”

But Changmin hadn’t called. Not that week, nor the week after. Donghae continued to bitch about it, but Yunho couldn’t bring himself to be angry or hurt. At least, not too much. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had one night stands before, and as far as one-offs went, the time he’d had with Changmin was beyond spectacular.

Which of course just made him greedy for more. But if Changmin had gone back to his distant ivory tower, then Yunho had no right to go and batter down the door with his hands dirty with engine oil.

And then came the cheque, delivered by courier. A single sheet of paper folded around it, and a neat, careful row of words: _I enclose a cheque for the full amount as agreed upon on August 5th. Thank you. — Shim Changmin._

“At least he paid,” Donghae had said, then slapped Yunho on the shoulder and suggested that they go out drinking.

Another couple of days passed, and Yunho tried to put Changmin from his mind. It was just about working, mainly because he was engaged in the task of rebuilding the side of a Ssangyong Korando that had come off worse in a disagreement with a concrete bollard, when his phone rang. He’d answered it without thought, and Changmin’s voice had stunned him into a ridiculous lust-filled daze.

“Hello. It’s Changmin. Shim Changmin. You fixed my car. The Toyota. The white one. Uh, the Carina, I mean. It needed new boots and... things.” 

He’d spoken in a rush, not giving Yunho a chance to respond. Spoken as if he’d rehearsed this a hundred times and had expected voicemail rather than a real live person. 

“Anyway. I was wondering if you could help me again. I need a new car. My parents have given me some money. Five million won. I don’t have a clue what to buy. I... I really want to see you again. Can you come to Seoul and help me buy a car?”

Into the long, long silence that followed, Yunho had said, “Yes.”

And that decision has led right here and now, to another silence as they wait at the traffic lights.

“You really didn’t need to pay me back,” Yunho says again.

“I did.” Changmin looks at him, then out of the window. “I didn’t want you to think I was taking advantage of your generosity.”

The lights change. Yunho turns right. The sat nav chimes up with further instructions. He waits until the dulcet tones fall quiet, then says, “I’m allowed to treat my boyfriend, aren’t I? I mean, okay, new boots and a gearbox overhaul and changing the diff, that’s not like a romantic weekend away or anything, but it’s the same principle.”

Changmin turns, startled and wide-eyed. “But—but I wasn’t...”

The conversation is going in circles. Yunho shuts it down. “The dealership is up ahead. Pretend I’m the one buying the car and let me do all the talking.”

* * *

The Kia is a possibility, but there are a lot of miles on the clock and the seats need reupholstering. The Daewoo is no good at all, continually drifting to the left even at moderate speeds and with its suspension shot to hell. Changmin seems disappointed with Yunho’s findings, or maybe he’s just bored. Peering inside engines and listening to discussions about fuel economy and performance are unlikely to be of interest to a Philosophy student.

On their way back to the university, Changmin calls the next four numbers on the list and arranges a staggered series of appointments for the following day. 

“I’m sure we’ll find a decent car tomorrow,” Yunho tells him.

“I hope so.” Changmin crosses out the ads in the trade magazine. Without looking up, he continues, “If we do, will you still stay the rest of the week?”

Yunho glances at him. “Yes. If that’s what you want.”

“If I’m not keeping you from anything more important...”

“You’re not. I’m on holiday.” Yunho shifts his attention back to the road. “I want to spend time with you. Get to know you.”

Changmin flicks his hair forwards then brushes it from his eyes. “I’d like that. But I have to do some work, too. I’m re-writing parts of my dissertation. My supervisor suggested some new avenues of study that may intersect with my research, and I should investigate them.”

Yunho knows Changmin’s thought patterns enough by now to recognise that this isn’t a brush-off. He also recognises that Changmin is worried that he’ll think it _is_ a brush-off. Funny how such a smart guy can have so little confidence. “No problem,” Yunho says cheerfully. “I can hang with your flatmates.”

That makes Changmin laugh.

They get back to the apartment with less than an hour to shower and change. Yunho takes note of the dimensions of the shower cubicle, which is twice the size of the crappy little thing in his flat at the back of the garage, but as he heads for Changmin’s room with the intention of suggesting that they save time and water and shower together, Kyuhyun looks up from the pile of books on the kitchen table and says, “Don’t even think about it.”

Chastened, Yunho retreats and showers alone in double-quick time.

While Changmin goes to take his own shower, Yunho unpacks his bag properly and finds that Changmin has made space for his stuff in a drawer and in the wardrobe. He spends some time examining Changmin’s clothes. They’re good quality. Expensive. Yunho leans into the wardrobe and inhales. Changmin’s clothes smell of flowery washing liquid and cologne, sort of sweet and sharp at the same time.

Next he pokes around the room, since he barely had a chance to notice anything but the bed last time. Changmin keeps everything tidy and clean. Yunho thinks of the dustball he’s been cultivating beneath his own bed and hopes that Changmin didn’t see it when he stayed over.

The furniture is pretty basic—a narrow bed, a desk, two chairs, the wardrobe, a chest of drawers, three shelves on the wall and a freestanding bookshelf. A small stereo perches on the drawers, a stack of CDs alongside. The shelves are overflowing with books. Most of them look ponderous with long titles. Many of them are in English. Then he reaches the end of the shelf and finds a few volumes of manga. That’s more like it. Yunho has read some of them. They’d make an ideal topic of conversation should things grind to a silent halt again.

On the desk are a laptop and more books and annotated photocopies of articles in a bunch of different languages. He recognises Changmin’s precise handwriting and realises that he must be in the middle of translating one of the articles. On the wall above the desk is a corkboard. Everything on it is neatly arranged—photos of a couple he takes to be Changmin’s parents, a picture of a small white fuzzy dog cuddled tight in Changmin’s arms, a few other family snaps plus some truly random pictures of Changmin with Kyuhyun and Minho doing weird things at an amusement park. Then there’s phone numbers for various university people, and index cards laying out his dissertation chapters, and then, almost hidden beneath the samurai sudoku calendar—numbers filled in with different coloured pens obviously as inspiration strikes—Yunho finds the receipt from the garage. The phone number he’d scribbled down. The smiley face he’d drawn after it.

Curious now, he flips the calendar back to the previous month. The sudoku remains unfinished. There’s a line through August 2nd to 5th with the note _Chosun, Conf_. Then on August 5th itself in a different coloured pen there’s a series of exclamation marks and—

Yunho draws in his breath. Stares at the calendar. _Yunho_ it says in purple biro, followed by more exclamation marks.

There’s the sound of conversation outside the bedroom door. Yunho lets the calendar drop and moves away. He soon realises the voices belong to Kyuhyun and Minho, but instead of snooping some more he turns his attention to getting dressed for their meal out. He didn’t bring a wide selection of clothes and he has no idea how poshed up he should get for tonight, so he hopes his best pair of jeans and his nicest shirt and a tie—yeah, that’s how keen he is, he even brought a _tie_ —and a slightly crumpled suit jacket will do. 

He finds a clothes brush at the bottom of the wardrobe and is smoothing out his jacket when Changmin comes in swathed in a dark blue bathrobe and with a towel wrapped turban-style around his head. 

They gaze at each other, and then Changmin smiles. “You look great.”

“You too.” Uh, stupid.

The smile becomes a laugh. Yunho beams at him. He could listen to Changmin laugh all day. Or watch him, even, because when Changmin really laughs, he laughs with his whole body. His shoulders quiver and he tips forward as if he wants to keep the laughter inside him, and he shakes and shakes and his face scrunches and it’s just so cute and _physical_.

Yunho wants to make him laugh like that when they’re in bed. He banishes the mental image and says somewhat roughly, “I’ll wait outside.”

Changmin catches his sleeve when he walks past, swings Yunho closer, and kisses him. Yunho responds, tastes spearmint toothpaste, inhales the warmth and shower-gel sweetness of Changmin’s skin, and slides a hand inside the robe to touch Changmin’s chest, chasing water droplets. 

They break apart, breathing fast. Changmin keeps his gaze fixed on Yunho’s mouth. “Thank you for today.” His voice is only just above a whisper.

“You’re welcome.” Yunho kisses him again, slower and less aggressive this time, then steps back. “You should get dressed.”

Changmin looks at him, all fire and lust, and Yunho gives a shaky laugh. Fuck, he should not get turned on so easily from a few kisses and a single look. Time to make an exit before he throws Changmin down onto the bed and screws him into next week.

He goes out into the kitchen to find Kyuhyun and Minho waiting. Kyuhyun rakes his gaze over Yunho’s outfit and says “Hi, dad.”

Minho makes a noise that’s half amused, half appalled, then he coughs and says to Yunho, “Ignore him.”

They’re both wearing scruffy jeans and band t-shirts. Yunho feels overdressed. It gets worse when Changmin comes out of his room wearing similarly scruffy jeans and a Chelsea football shirt. His hair is still wet, bearing the tracks of his fingers raked through it. He looks young and innocent.

Yunho feels as if he’s eighty years old. It’s too late to get changed. Besides, Changmin likes what he’s wearing. Maybe if he takes off the tie. Yeah. He’ll ditch the sodding tie. What was he thinking?

“Let’s go, I’m starving.” Kyuhyun leads the way to the door. 

Minho and Changmin follow, and Yunho quickly undoes his tie and shoves it into his pocket. Changmin turns, his gaze dropping to Yunho’s collar. He smiles a little and unfastens the top two buttons on Yunho’s shirt.

“That’s better,” Changmin says, low and sexy, and a jolt of something fierce and tender goes through Yunho.

They take the BMW. Changmin blushes when Kyuhyun and Minho sit in the back and make inappropriate comments, little knowing how accurate they are. Yunho turns on the stereo and blasts rock music through the back speakers. It deadens conversation for a while, but eventually Changmin turns down the volume and twists around to face his friends and they discuss which restaurant to go to in Dongdaemun. Various suggestions are made, including Nepalese and Kazakh, until they finally decide on an Italian place that’s offering some kind of early evening deal.

The Italian-looking waiter addresses Yunho rather than anyone else, which is embarrassing. Surely he doesn’t look _that_ old now he’s lost the tie. He removes his jacket, too, but obviously he still sends off some kind of vibe that says _Not A Student_ and the waiter knows it and is hoping for a decent tip rather than five hundred won.

Changmin leans close as Yunho studies the menu. It’s in Italian with English and Korean translations beneath, but the translations are a bit vague. Yunho struggles with it and thinks he’ll just order pizza. Changmin moves even closer, all fresh and clean, the tantalising sharp-sweetness of his cologne pulling at Yunho’s senses. 

“The lamb and mushroom kebabs are pretty good,” Changmin says. “And I can recommend the Tuscan hunter’s stew. Or if you like fish, the roasted sole is also good. I think I’ll have that.”

Yunho closes the menu with relief. “I’ll have the stew. And a beer.”

“You can’t drink _beer_ ,” Kyuhyun says. He looks horrified, as if Yunho had suggested drinking battery acid. “At least _look_ at the wine list.”

Yunho shrugs. What the hell does he know about wine? “You choose.”

Kyuhyun looks pleased and immediately picks the most expensive bottle on the list.

“Kyu is quite the wine connoisseur,” Changmin murmurs in Yunho’s ear. “He’d have hated you forever if you’d chosen something.”

The waiter comes back to their table. He looks at Yunho, but it’s Minho who orders for them all. In fluent Italian.

Yunho has never felt so out of place. It’s only Changmin’s hand on his thigh beneath the tablecloth that stops him from bolting out of there. He’s not felt this nervous in years. He thought he’d forgotten how to be nervous, but no, it’s still there, all too ready to remind him of the differences between him and Changmin and Changmin’s clever friends.

When Yunho gets nervous, he talks too much. He talks a lot anyway, but when he’s nervous it’s as if his mouth goes into overdrive. The urge is upon him now, but he reins it in and tries to make sensible conversation, asking Kyuhyun and Minho what they’re studying.

“PhD in Macroeconomics,” Kyuhyun says, fixing Yunho with a steady, almost challenging gaze. “Continuous-time models of structural balance within social networks.”

Yunho almost says something stupid about Twitter, but asks instead, “And your research will benefit these networks? Make them run smoother?”

Kyuhyun blinks. Considers his reply. “I’m not sure. Most theories are devised with the intention of practical application, but in reality many of those theories cannot be applied because of certain variables. My work focuses on balance and polarisation. These can be achieved in initial generic conditions, but when other variables are factored in, the outcome is much different and while it can be predicted, it can’t always be controlled.” 

“Okay.” Yunho thinks he gets what Kyuhyun means. He’s trying to think of something clever to say in response when the waiter brings their meals. By the time the food is served, rich with the smell of tomato and garlic, Kyuhyun’s attention is on the wine and Minho steps into the breach and tells Yunho that his Master’s dissertation is on totality and narrative in the short stories of Arthur Conan Doyle, with reference to other Victorian detective novelists.

“Oh,” says Yunho as he chases a clove of garlic around the dish in front of him. “He wrote Sherlock Holmes. I like the British TV show.”

Minho perks up. “The one with Jeremy Brett?”

“The other one. The modern one.”

“Sensationalised rubbish.” Minho scowls and stabs at his plate of gnocchi.

“But wasn’t Sherlock Holmes supposed to be sensational when it was published?” Yunho vaguely remembers watching or reading something to that end. “Serialised fiction is usually sensational, isn’t it? So they just updated the show appropriately.”

Minho stares at him. “Yes, but.”

Kyuhyun pounds his fist on the table and laughs, pointing at Minho, who looks flustered and annoyed. Changmin hides his mouth and giggles, then leans into Yunho and breathes, “Oh, you’re _perfect_.”

He’s not entirely sure why, but Yunho takes the compliment anyway. He lifts his glass and takes a swig of the expensive red wine. It tastes of old socks and rotting wood. He wonders if he can get a beer.

“More wine?” Kyuhyun offers. He’s smiling and looks much more animated. Maybe it’s the wine. Maybe it’s the scintillating chat about continuous-time networks or whatever the fuck it was. Or maybe it’s something to do with Minho’s apparent sulk. 

“Better not.” Yunho covers his glass. “I’m driving.” And thank fuck for that. 

Kyuhyun’s smile intensifies and he pours more wine for himself.

Minho forks his gnocchi into a mound in the middle of his plate. “So,” he says after a moment of silence, “you’re from Gwangju, right? I must admit I can’t hear much of an accent. I know, why don’t you say something in that funny dialect?”

Yunho acknowledges the barb but doesn’t rise to it, focusing on his dinner.

Kyuhyun elbows Minho and says, “Dude, are you stupid or what? He’s talking proper to impress Changmin.”

Changmin goes all stiff and stares down at his food. He looks embarrassed, his lips pressed tight.

Yunho doesn’t mind playing the fool occasionally, but he’ll be damned if he does it this evening. Aware of Changmin’s tension, he says easily, “I lost most of my accent when I did military service. My CO was from Gwangju and hated to be reminded of it.”

“Where were you stationed?” Changmin asks. It’s the first time he’s really joined in the conversation, and he even puts down his knife and fork and looks at Yunho with those big dark eyes like he’s interested.

“The north-east. Close to the border.”

“Fuck,” Minho says.

“It wasn’t that bad.” Yunho spears a piece of beef. “I got to play with trucks and tanks. That’s how I became a mechanic. I did okay at school but...” He shrugs. “I thought academic stuff was kind of pointless. I wanted to do something real. So I started an apprenticeship and then I went into the army and one time I got really drunk and tried to strip down a Leopard 2—”

“A tank,” Minho says, sounding shocked. “Jesus Christ. A _tank_.”

“Cool!” Kyuhyun laughs again. He looks a little tipsy. Leaning across the table, he wags a finger at Changmin. “Bro, your boyfriend is a lunatic.”

Changmin bats his hand away and stares at Yunho. “You really stripped down a tank?”

“Yeah. I had help, though.”

“Donghae,” Changmin guesses.

“We were so wasted.” Yunho grins at the memory. “Donghae dropped a wrench between the tracks and we must’ve spent an hour looking for it. He crawled underneath and was shouting all this crazy stuff because he liked the echo down there. Then I started on the engine and I honestly don’t remember much of what happened afterwards until we were carted off to solitary. I had the worst hangover ever when we went in front of the CO. He bawled us out for fully half an hour, made us fix the damage to the Leopard, then put us on fatigues for a fortnight. After that he transferred us both to the mech division. Said we may as well do something useful before we started a war.”

Changmin is still staring. “Kyu’s right,” he says. “You’re a lunatic.”

Yunho holds his gaze. Smiles. “Yeah.”

Changmin blushes.

Conversation ebbs. The waiter clears their plates and asks if they want dessert. Kyuhyun orders some kind of rice tart. Minho and Changmin ask for coffee. Yunho still wants a beer, but decides he can do without. He sits back and lets the three friends talk amongst themselves about some university thing. Taking advantage of not being Mr Entertainment for the moment, he looks at Changmin, studies the shape of his ear and the line of his jaw and the delicious curve of his mouth, then the length of his neck, slender and elegant, and the dip between his collarbones.

Yunho shifts in his seat, arousal jump-starting inside him. He looks around the restaurant as distraction, focuses on the other customers. The waiter arrives with the dessert and the coffees. Apparently mistaking restlessness for boredom, Minho asks, “Is this your first visit to Seoul?”

“No.” Yunho glances back, answers without thinking. “I lost my virginity here on my fifteenth birthday.”

Changmin chokes on his coffee. It slops down the side of the cup. He exclaims and jerks backwards, wiping at his mouth and then dabbing ineffectually with his napkin at the dark stain on the tablecloth and on his jeans.

“Dude.” Kyuhyun glances up from his rice tart with its cream and orange sauce and gives Changmin a limpid look. “You didn’t really think you were his first, did you?”


	3. Chapter 3

They lie together in Changmin’s narrow bed, sweat drying on their bodies, the duvet pushed down around their knees. The wall is cool against Yunho’s back. Usually he likes to spread out in bed, but he doesn’t mind the cramped quarters this time. It gives him every excuse to stay close to Changmin.

He can’t stop touching him, stroking Changmin’s pale skin and breathing in their combined scent. It’s enough to make him hard again, but though Changmin must be aware of it, he keeps still. Yunho nuzzles into his neck and presses kisses along his jaw, his cheek. He lifts up onto his elbows and kisses Changmin’s mouth, feels the delicate brush of Changmin’s eyelashes against his face.

Changmin responds sweetly enough, but it’s without any heat. He seems lost in thought, and Yunho stops kissing him and gives him some space. Changmin smiles, and that’s enough for now. Yunho likes Changmin’s smiles. He likes them a whole lot.

They’re quiet for a while. Through the wall comes the sound of Kyuhyun and Minho playing a computer game out in the living room, the TV turned up loud enough that Yunho can hear the boom of explosions and the screech of dying monsters.

“Yunho,” Changmin says at last. “What was your first time like?”

A strange question—or perhaps not, given his bald statement over dinner. Yunho ponders how best to answer. When other lovers have asked this question, he’s always embellished the tale, but this time he wants to tell the truth.

Changmin is looking at him, eyes glittering in the scant light through the gap in the curtains.

Yunho sighs. “It was crap, actually.” He pulls the duvet up, covering them to the waist, then settles beside Changmin. “Seriously crap. See, I knew I was gay when I was a kid and I didn’t want to play doctors with the girls, only the boys. And then I had a crush on practically every male authority figure you can imagine. Teachers, cops, the manager of the grocery store, the weather guy on TV... So I got it into my head that, rather than wank off over all these guys, maybe I should actually do something about it. But I was too worried about going out cruising in Gwangju, because what if I saw someone I knew, what if they told my dad?”

Changmin makes a sympathetic sound and nudges closer. 

“My grandfather gave me some money for my birthday,” Yunho continues. “I told my dad I was staying with a friend that night and I caught the train to Seoul. I’d looked up where the gay bars were and I dressed up and hoped I looked old enough to get in. I thought I was so cool. I must’ve been so obvious—cute little country twink all alone in the city.” He laughs at the memory.

“So I went to this one place and it was full of leather guys. I had no idea. Not only was I a virgin, I was also completely clueless. It was like throwing fresh meat to a tank of piranhas. I didn’t think I’d make it out of there alive, but then the barman stepped in and very nicely suggested that maybe I should run along and try someplace else, and I asked him where, and he told me about this other bar, so that’s where I went.”

“Another dodgy place?” Changmin asks.

“Mm.” Yunho trails his hand across Changmin’s chest, then puts an arm around his waist. “The kind of place where older guys go to pick up younger guys. I was there five minutes and had about a dozen offers of drinks or sex or both. Jeez, I was full of myself. I thought I could pick and choose. Then this one guy came over and scared off the rest, and he put his arm around me and he said—he had this scary gruff voice, like this: ‘You’re pretty, you’re coming home with me’.” Yunho sniggers as he tries to mimic the guy’s voice. 

“I was fifteen and he’d called me pretty. Maybe I was, but at that age it’s like an insult, so I was all ‘oh yeah?’ and he said ‘Yeah’, and I don’t even know what I was thinking, but I went with him. He lived in this really crappy apartment that smelled bad, and the bed sheets were dirty and he didn’t even offer me a drink, he just... got on with it. And it hurt. I guess I was nervous and he just wanted a bit of tail and didn’t care that it was my first time, so yeah, it hurt, but it was over pretty fast.”

Changmin is silent. Yunho wonders if he’s fallen asleep, but then Changmin says, “Considering it was crap, you were smiling when you talked about it.”

“Well, yeah. Everyone has to start somewhere. And it didn’t put me off. Quite the opposite.” Yunho pauses, realising how that must sound. “Not that I’m some kind of slut or anything. I mean, I’ve had lovers but...”

“But no boyfriends?” Changmin sounds amused.

“A few. No one special.” Yunho stops, corrects himself again. “That’s unfair. They were special at the time. I’m not that much of a wanker, even if some of them were tosspots.” He pauses again. “Anyway. No one special.”

He leaves it hanging there, half hoping that Changmin will pick it up. When he doesn’t, Yunho clears his throat and changes the subject. “What about you? I’ve told you mine, now tell me yours.”

“My first time?” Changmin looks startled, as if he hadn’t expected the question. When he speaks again, he sounds cautious. “I was twenty-one. I guess you must think that’s funny.”

There’s a note of aggression in Changmin’s words, as if he’s expecting to be mocked. Yunho shakes his head. “You didn’t meet the right guy until then. So what?”

Changmin snorts. Yunho gets the impression that he’s said the wrong thing, but he doesn’t know what part of what he said could have given offence. Backtracking, he adds, “There’s nothing wrong with waiting.”

“I wasn’t waiting.” Changmin’s voice is tight. “I was too shy to do anything.” He’s silent for a moment, then he exhales. “I came out to my parents when I was seventeen. They were good about it. Supportive. After a while, my mother started asking if I’d met any nice boys, if I was seeing anyone. She said it was okay if I wanted to bring a special friend home. I should have been grateful, but it made things worse, because I didn’t know how to talk to the guys I liked. I’m quiet. I’m shy. And I feel stupid around hot guys.”

Yunho interrupts. “But you don’t feel stupid around me.”

Changmin gives a soft chuckle. “You’re not hot.”

“Thanks.”

“No. Really. You’re the sexiest man I’ve ever seen.” Changmin looks serious. “You make me feel beyond stupid. Like I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s...” 

“Fantastic,” Yunho says.

“I was going to say ‘terrifying’.” A shy smile curves Changmin’s beautiful mouth. “But yes, it’s fantastic, too.”

“That’s what you meant by you not being who you were last month?” Yunho asks, and when Changmin nods, he continues, “It was obvious you were out of your comfort zone as soon as you walked into the garage, but you went for it anyway. Full tilt and headlong. I’m so glad you did.”

Curiosity shines in Changmin’s eyes. “Would you have done something if I hadn’t?”

Now that’s a question. Yunho wants to say yes, but it wouldn’t be the truth. “No,” he says. “And then I’d have regretted it forever afterwards. Because I wanted you, but I thought you were out of my league.”

“Me?” Changmin can’t hide his surprise. “But I—I’m...” He pauses, his breath hitching. “I thought it was the other way around. I mean, you’re...”

“The sexiest man you’ve ever seen. Yeah. Got it.” Yunho grins.

“A massive dork, that’s what I meant to say.” Changmin shoves him playfully, then gentles his hand, turns the push into a caress. “You’re made of sex. And I’m only saying this because it’s dark. I’m not going to say it again in daylight. Just so you know.”

“I think I can deal with that.” Putting his amusement aside, Yunho closes his hand around Changmin’s wrist, stroking up and down his arm. “But you were telling me about your first time. Don’t try to get out of it.”

Changmin’s mood shifts again. He rolls onto his back, the darkness crawling to veil his expression. “When I was twenty-one, I met a guy. He was older. Knew what he was doing in everything. He chased me for months. I slept with him.”

His tone is so dull that Yunho is hesitant to ask: “Did he hurt you?”

For a long time it seems as if Changmin isn’t going to reply, and then he sighs. “No. It was perfect. Everything I’d hoped it would be. He made it really special. Dinner. Wine. Candles. Silk sheets.”

Yunho thinks of oil-splattered concrete floors underneath a clapped-out car and winces at his own lack of romance.

“It was perfect,” Changmin says again. The words have a hollow ring. “It didn’t hurt at all.”

“Well,” Yunho says, at a loss as to how he’s supposed to respond, “he must’ve been an experienced lover. Um, I’m glad it was good for you.”

“Yeah.” Changmin turns his head towards the window. The lick of sodium light through the curtains catches on his cheekbones. His lips part as if around some unspoken sorrow.

Yunho suddenly can’t breathe. Something lurches inside his chest. It’s unfamiliar, this sensation, and he tries to push past it. Looking for distraction, he leans forward and says the first thing to come to mind. “I love your mouth.” He runs a whisper-soft caress over Changmin’s lips. “It’s so sexy.”

Looking wary rather than pleased, Changmin says, “Too wide. Too big. I hate it.”

“It’s gorgeous. You’re gorgeous.”

Changmin makes a negative gesture, his body tense. “Too tall. Skinny. Ears stick out. Horrible big mouth. My eyes—”

Yunho can scarcely believe what he’s hearing. “Who told you this shit? Changmin, you’re _beautiful_. I thought I was the luckiest guy on earth when you walked into the garage. You know what I else I thought? You can laugh, because it’s embarrassing, but I’m going to tell you anyway—I thought you were an angel. Yeah. You stood there all backlit and the sun made this halo around you and I swear, I _swear_ , Changminnie, I looked up and thought you were a fucking angel.”

There’s a moment of absolute silence, and then Changmin pulls at him, demanding. “Kiss me.”

Yunho kisses him. It lights them both, fierce and urgent, and he brings Changmin closer. “You’re sweet, so sweet,” Yunho murmurs. “You drive me crazy.”

Changmin makes a muffled sound and kisses him again. It’s only when Yunho tastes salt and wetness that he realises Changmin is crying.

“Changminnie?”

“It’s not you. It’s not you.” A sob rips from Changmin’s throat. “Please. I need you again.”

Yunho hesitates.

“ _Please_.”

He doesn’t want to do it like this. Yunho brushes his lips over Changmin’s tears, kissing them away.

“Don’t be gentle.” Changmin sounds angry, distraught. “Just—don’t.”

Yunho knows better than to ask questions. He just has to accept this for what it is. Changmin doesn’t want sex; he’s seeking catharsis. Yunho has been there often enough himself not to recognise it now. He’s sought oblivion in a willing body before. There’s nothing wrong with it. Nothing at all.

He takes Changmin’s mouth, brutal and hungry, and Changmin moans in desperation. God, that sound. It fires his blood, makes him feel like less of the man he wants to be. Yunho rolls on top of Changmin and holds him down, trapping their cocks together. He’s not going to fuck Changmin, not when he doesn’t know what happened to cause such upset, but he’ll make damn sure that Changmin gets off.

Yunho gropes on the bedside table for the lube, gets his hand nice and slick, then eases between their bodies and lifts himself slightly so he can get a grip on them both. He jerks their dicks, does it hard, sets a punishing rhythm that pulls Changmin from his tears and makes him arch and struggle and fight for release.

This isn’t about pleasure. It’s about blotting out the past. It’s fast and violent and it breaks Yunho’s heart even as lust pumps through him, even as he fastens his teeth in Changmin’s neck and marks him.

“Yunho, Yunho,” Changmin whispers, and it’s like a scream turned inwards.

Yunho kisses him, tastes the anguish of Changmin’s orgasm, takes him through the long, shuddering aftershocks. 

They’re painted with heat, sticky and wet. Yunho finds the box of tissues on the floor and cleans them both up. Before he’s even finished, Changmin’s breathing changes and softens, and Yunho knows he’s asleep. 

Probably it’s for the best. If he’d stayed awake, Yunho would have been tempted to say something monumentally stupid. Something like _I really like you_. 

Yes, it’s for the best that he didn’t have the chance to say it, because he thinks the truth is already more than that.


	4. Chapter 4

Yunho wakes a couple of hours later, disoriented for a moment until he remembers where he is. Then he registers Changmin facing away from him, perched right on the edge of the mattress. Despite this, the bed is so narrow there’s only a few inches between them. Yunho considers pulling Changmin closer, worried that he might roll off onto the floor and take the duvet with him, but when he reaches out, Changmin makes a sound in his sleep and lifts his shoulder to shake off the touch.

It’s an interesting response. Yunho doesn’t take it as an unconscious rejection; at least, he doesn’t think it’s a rejection aimed at him. Maybe it’s because Changmin isn’t used to sharing the bed. Or maybe it has something to do with the man who took Changmin’s virginity. Something went on there that Changmin isn’t willing to talk about, and though Yunho knows better than to push, he can’t help being curious.

Thoughts chase around his head, each one more outlandish than the last. Finally accepting that he’s not going to get any more sleep tonight, Yunho decides he may as well get up and maybe watch some TV. He extricates himself from the tangle of the duvet and crawls down to the foot of the bed, careful not to disturb Changmin. There’s just enough light through the curtain for him to find his jeans. He pulls them on then quietly opens the bedroom door and creeps out.

Though the kitchen is dark, light bleeds beneath the door to the living room. Now he can hear the muffled sound of the TV, and he realises Kyuhyun and Minho must still be up and playing computer games. He hesitates for a moment, then decides he’s not going to sit in the kitchen with only economics books for company. Kyuhyun and Minho are Changmin’s friends, and if anyone might know what happened to make him so unsure of himself, it’s these guys. Not that Yunho has any intention of prying, oh no. If it comes up in casual conversation then it’s all well and good, but he’s not going to ask leading questions. That’s just not his style.

He opens the fridge and finds a large bottle of filtered water, pours himself a glass, and takes it with him into the living room. Kyuhyun and Minho turn from their game and stare at him. Onscreen, someone gets shot to bloody pieces. Someone else gets attacked by a monster. Yunho gestures with the glass. “I think you’re being slaughtered.”

“Shit.” Kyuhyun faces the screen and presses a few buttons on his controller.

Minho frowns, looks from Yunho to the game and then back again. Yunho thinks maybe he should have put on a shirt or something, but he doesn’t want to go back into the bedroom in case he wakes Changmin. They’ll all just have to deal. He crosses the room and sits on the couch, tucking a couple of cushions around him.

“Can’t sleep?” Minho asks, sounding almost sympathetic. “Student beds suck. I bought a new mattress and it overhangs the bed frame by two feet. When I roll over, the whole thing just tips sideways.”

Yunho takes a drink of water. “If you move the bed away from the wall just a bit and then balance the mattress more evenly in the middle, it should solve the problem.”

Minho considers the advice, then nods, expression brightening. “Why didn’t I think of that? I’ll try it.” He starts to get up from the floor, but Kyuhyun growls at him to sit down and finish the level.

The screen flickers, the sound distorting for a moment. “This is shit,” Kyuhyun says, banging the controller against his palm. The character he’s playing stands around doing nothing. “What the fuck? Look at the lag on it!” His character dies a violent death. Kyuhyun swears again and throws the controller down. “Piece of crap. It’s broken.”

“Told you not to take it into the bathroom,” Minho says. “Told you the steam would get in and do something weird.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Kyuhyun stares at the malfunctioning controller then sits up straight. He gets a gleeful look on his face, grabs the controller, and holds it out to Yunho. “You’re a mechanic. Make yourself useful.”

Yunho raises his eyebrows. “I fix cars. I don’t see any wheels on that.”

“But I play racing car games with it,” Kyuhyun says.

If there’s logic there, Yunho doesn’t know where it is. Nevertheless he puts down his glass and takes the controller. “This is a sealed unit. If something’s broken inside I won’t be able to get in to fix it. Are you sure this is the problem?”

Kyuhyun shrugs. “I dunno. It’s done stuff like that before. And Changmin’s controller gets all weird, too.”

“And mine,” adds Minho.

“Then maybe it’s the console not receiving the signal or something like that.” Yunho hands back the controller and gestures at the console. “Bring it over here.”

Kyuhyun does so, right after Minho suggests checking that all the leads are actually plugged in properly. They are, so Kyuhyun untangles them and hands the console over. Yunho examines it, then gets up and goes into the kitchen, finds a knife and uses it to lever open the unit. Inside, one of the wires has come loose. He restores the connection, snaps everything back together, then gives it back to Kyuhyun. “Try that.”

Wearing a dubious expression, Kyuhyun plugs it back in and reloads the game. He starts the level again, and this time his character moves to order. The console seems to be fixed. Kyuhyun whoops and bounces on the floor. “Dude!”

Minho roots through the mess of DVDs and video games at the foot of the TV and pulls out a third controller. “Here,” he says, offering it to Yunho. “If you want to play.”

“Sure.” Yunho makes himself comfortable on the sofa. It’s been a while since he’s played this kind of game and he’s not used to a wireless controller. Donghae has some outmoded thing that they play occasionally when they’ve got nothing better to do, but this looks more sophisticated than an old version of _Streetfighter_.

“This is boring, let’s race cars instead.” Kyuhyun stops the game and swaps discs. “Here we go. _F1 2011_. I want to be Alonso.”

“I’m Lewis Hamilton,” Minho announces.

“Okay.” Yunho studies the available field of drivers when it comes up on the screen. “I’ll be Mark Webber.”

“Ew.” Kyuhyun wrinkles his nose in disgust. “Just for that, you can pick the circuit. But not Korea or Valencia, those are like the most boring tracks ever.”

“Canada,” Yunho says straight away. It’s always been his favourite of the mid-season power circuits.

“Good choice, bro,” Minho approves. “Kyuhyun always hits the Wall of Champions.”

“You always cause a Safety Car situation,” Kyuhyun counters as the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve loads onscreen.

Yunho lets them grouse at each other as the race starts and Webber’s car bogs down. Half the field streams past him. At the first corner a Force India spins, collecting two other cars and launching a Torro Rosso into the air. It lands with a crash and sends debris skittering across the track.

“Wasn’t me,” Minho says as the Safety Car comes out and backs up the pack for the rest of the lap.

When the race gets going again, Yunho has worked out how to use the controls and starts making his way through the field. Kyuhyun ploughs Alonso into the Wall of Champions and retires. Minho’s Hamilton is in the lead with Vettel in second and Button in third. Sitting fourth with a decent gap between him and Rosberg in fifth, Yunho sends Webber in for fresh tyres, gambling on the weather report that predicts a forty percent chance of rain in the final part of the race.

“Go on, man,” Kyuhyun urges, staring at the screen.

Yunho isn’t sure if he’s encouraging him or Minho. He sends Webber up the inside of Button then jinks right to cover the exit on the corner. The move sticks. Now for Vettel. They come up to a group of backmarkers and Yunho waits for his chance. Massa’s Ferrari has an engine problem and leaks oil onto the track. When Vettel moves to one side to avoid the spill, Yunho throws Webber forward.

“ _Awesome_ ,” Kyuhyun breathes, then says in a louder voice, “Dude, he’s catching you. Four point seven seconds.”

“My third sector is quickest.” Minho crouches forward over his controller as if he can make Hamilton go faster. 

“Yeah, but look at him go in the first sector. That is seriously quick. You’re gonna lose, bro.”

“I’m _winning_ ,” Minho snaps.

The rain begins to fall. Minho tries to keep Hamilton out on track, but starts losing grip. Yunho hauls him in, the Red Bull creeping ever closer to the back of the McLaren.

“You have to come in,” Kyuhyun tells Minho. “You’re gonna aquaplane right into the gravel like you always do at Silverstone. Two seconds. You won’t make it.”

“Fuck you. Fuck fuck fuck.” Minho dives Hamilton into the pits and thumps the rug with his hand while the crew rushes around changing the tyres.

Yunho floors it, counting the seconds in his head. Along the straight, ease right, downshift from 183mph to 84mph in turn one, another quick punch out of the long corner as the track reaches around. Hamilton is released from the box but has the speed limiter on in the pitlane. A burst of excitement electrifies Yunho. He can win this race.

Minho howls as Hamilton rejoins just behind Webber. It’s still raining and the track is running with water. A couple of backmarkers fighting for eleventh collide just ahead. Yunho negotiates around them, slowing his pace. Hamilton closes the gap. Minho leans forward again, almost falling on his face as he sends Hamilton left then right in a desperate attempt to take the lead. Yunho closes the door on him and pulls ahead.

“Last lap,” Kyuhyun says unnecessarily. He’s glued to the screen.

“You’re going _down_ ,” Minho snarls.

The gap between them measures in tenths of a second. Yunho can’t afford to make a mistake now. Hamilton is all over the back of Webber, looking for a weakness, an opportunity. There’s a chance at the hairpin, where the track is so slippery there’s no grip and Webber understeers. Minho sends Hamilton around the outside. They’re wheel to wheel coming out of the exit and racing down towards the final straight. 

Kyuhyun stuffs his fist into his mouth and makes a croaking sound.

The track kinks left. Yunho edges Webber free of Hamilton, opens the DRS and barrels down the final straight. Just one more corner, the one that trips up so many drivers and sends them crashing out. He doesn’t even look at where Hamilton is now, keeps his eyes on the track, brakes and turns hard right, snaps it left, just kissing the Wall of Champions as he gets on the power and accelerates out of the final corner. The chequered flag is out. Yunho bolts for the finish line and hears Minho’s howl of despair as the flag comes down, declaring Webber the winner.

“Yes!” Yunho jumps up, fist raised in victory. Cushions scatter across the floor. “Not bad for a number two driver!”

Kyuhyun collapses into laughter. Even Minho starts sniggering.

The door from the kitchen opens and in comes Changmin, wrapped in his bathrobe and with his hair all bed-tousled and his eyes sleepy and a couple of raked bruises on his neck from where Yunho had got too carried away last night. He rubs a hand through his hair, ruffling it even more, and says, “Guys, it’s six o’clock in the morning.”

“Great. Time for breakfast,” Kyuhyun says, exiting the game. “I’m starving.”

“Me too.” Minho abandons his controller and gets to his feet. He looks at Yunho. “Winner buys everyone else breakfast. House rules.”

Changmin makes a sound of protest. “Since when?”

“Since you got a cool boyfriend,” Minho says. “C’mon dude, get dressed. Yunho is totally going to buy us breakfast, aren’t you, bro?”

Yunho looks at Changmin, who covers his face in mock despair.

“Yeah,” says Yunho with a grin. “I’m buying.”

* * *

None of the cars they look at that day are suitable. Either they’d require too much supplementary work—Yunho’s point of argument—or the colour and shape are wrong—Changmin’s main criteria. The one vehicle they’d both agreed upon was grossly over-budget and the owner refused to be bargained down, so their agreement was academic anyway.

“But it’s not a wasted day,” Yunho says cheerfully as they head east across the city. “I have a better idea now of the kind of car you want.”

“Blue or silver or red.” Changmin’s voice is full of self-mockery. “I’m so specific.”

“The shape of the car also seems to be important.” Yunho gives him a smiling glance. “You like cars with curves, not angles. No sharp lines.”

Changmin snorts. “Sorry to be a pain.”

“You’re not.” And it’s the truth. Changmin has been interested and engaged with the car examination process all day. By the time they looked at the third vehicle, he was starting to ask pertinent questions regarding fuel economy. Some of the sellers were smart people in wealthy neighbourhoods, and they responded better to Changmin’s shy, deferential manner than they did to Yunho’s big smiley enthusiasm.

At lunchtime they’d grabbed something cheap and quick from a street vendor and sat on a wall to eat it. When Changmin had finished his food, he’d traced his forefinger through the rips in the knees of Yunho’s jeans and casually asked what it meant, in layman’s terms, to have one hundred and six pounds to feet of torque. The question had been a surprise—Changmin must really have been paying attention to all that car-talk—and while Yunho tried to explain torsion, Changmin fixed him with a wide-eyed look and seemed properly engrossed in the reply. 

But for all Changmin’s newfound interest in automotive mechanics, they haven’t found the right car. Yunho doesn’t mind. He’s got all week for this.

Changmin has gone quiet. He fidgets a little, presses his lips together. He really doesn’t know what a habit that is, or how much it drives Yunho crazy. Every time he does it, Yunho wants to kiss him. That mouth shouldn’t be folded into a straight, repressed line. It should be kissed and kissed into smiles and softness. Or it should be slick and pouted around Yunho’s cock.

Yunho is glad they’re almost back at the dorms. Even if he has to run the gamut of Kyuhyun and Minho first, he has plans for Changmin that involve a practical demonstration of torque.

As they drive through the campus, Changmin says, “I have tutorial groups all day tomorrow. I should be finished by four.”

“No problem.” Yunho eases his lust-lit daydreams aside and looks at Changmin. “I know a couple of people on the other side of the city. Guys in the trade, I mean. I could go see them, ask if they know of some decent cars for sale. And I can carry on going through the rest of the list.”

Changmin lowers his gaze and stares at the open page of the auto trade magazine on his lap. “But this is your holiday.”

“Yeah, and my priority is finding you a car that won’t break down every five minutes, that’ll be economical to run, and that won’t cost the earth in insurance.” Yunho grins. “Besides, I _like_ cars, remember? This is what I do. I’m good at it. So let me do it.”

“If you’re sure...” Changmin doesn’t sound certain.

Yunho gives him a look. “Changminnie. I’m sure.” 

They turn into the car park near the artificial lake. A few students are sitting on the grass reading books or staring at their iPads. A couple stand on the little bridge over the narrowest part of the water. The car park is almost full, and Yunho has to nose the BMW carefully into a space. He turns off the engine and unfastens his seatbelt, but makes no further move to get out.

Changmin fumbles with his seatbelt latch. The magazine slides off his knee onto the floor. He huffs, blows the long fringe from his eyes as he tries to undo his seatbelt and reach for the magazine at the same time. Obviously aware of Yunho watching him, Changmin blushes and becomes even more awkward.

It’s on the tip of his tongue to tell Changmin to take his time, they’re not in any rush, but Yunho stays silent. For most of today, Changmin’s been confident and relaxed. Now he’s flustered and anxious. Yunho doesn’t think that this time it has anything to do with his incredible sex appeal. Changmin doesn’t look like he wants to ravish him on the leather seats; he looks like he wants to curl up and hibernate for the next three months.

In Yunho’s experience, all this points in one direction: a really bad break-up.

He doesn’t mind being the rebound guy. He especially doesn’t mind all the hot, sweaty sex they’ve been having. He doesn’t even mind being used to restore Changmin’s shattered confidence, because he enjoys seeing Changmin blossom and open up. But at the same time, Yunho wants this to be something more.

He’s been debating whether or not to say something all day, and because they’re sitting together in a fraught silence, because it’s at the forefront of his mind, Yunho just comes out with it: “Who hurt you?”

“What?” The seatbelt buckle clicks free and slithers across Changmin’s chest. He lifts his head, eyes very wide and wariness written all over his face. “Did Kyu and Minho say something to you this morning?”

“No. God, no.” Yunho curses his curiosity. Way to go, making Changmin doubt his friends. “We didn’t talk about you. We just played that F1 game.”

Changmin stares at him. “Don’t talk about me. I don’t like it.” He picks up the auto magazine and slides it beneath him, then opens the door as wide as it’ll go without hitting the car parked beside it. He gets out, uncoordinated and jerky and somehow offended.

Great, his fucking stupid big mouth. Yunho groans and gets out. Locks the car. By the time he’s edged past the Honda parked alongside, Changmin has strode away towards the dorms. Yunho hurries after him. “Hey. I’m sorry. I just... Last night, you were upset. I want to know why. I want to do something.”

Changmin doesn’t look back. “It’s nothing. Forget it.”

Yunho catches his arm and makes him turn. “Baby, you were _crying_. I can’t forget that.”

The area in front of the dorm entrance is free of students, but a couple of windows are open and three girls sit on the grass about fifteen feet away. Yunho doesn’t think anyone can overhear their conversation, but Changmin still darts anxious looks to either side before saying, “It’s not what you think.”

Tilting his head, Yunho asks, “And what do I think?”

“It’s okay. Honestly.” Changmin’s gaze softens. He glances away for a moment. “Last night—I was just overwhelmed. That’s all. That’s _all_.”

Yunho recognises a lie when he hears one, but Changmin is looking at him with such appeal that he nods and accepts it. For now, anyway.


	5. Chapter 5

Yunho spends most of Monday driving around outlying districts of Seoul tracking down old acquaintances and checking out a succession of cars. He takes photos of the best ones and sends them to Changmin, then returns to the apartment to find Kyuhyun piling more books onto the kitchen table.

“The shelf in my bedroom broke,” he explains when he sees Yunho’s expression.

“It snapped under the weight of continuous-time models?”

Kyuhyun snorts. “It’s cheap crap.”

“Let me take a look at it,” Yunho offers. “We can probably get a replacement shelf easily enough.”

Turns out that it’s not the shelf but the bracket. Yunho sifts through a pile of gaming magazines on the floor and finds the missing screw. It’s a matter of minutes to sort the problem and then he helps Kyuhyun carry the books back into the room. They’re halfway through this task when Minho comes in from class and says, “What’s going on?”

“Yunho fixed my shelf,” Kyuhyun says. “I was going to get him to arrange all my books in alphabetical order, too, but that might be pushing my luck.”

Minho brightens and turns a wide smile on Yunho. “Hey, do you think you could fix the cold tap in the kitchen? It’s always dripping. We called Buildings and Works about it like two weeks ago and they haven’t sent someone yet.”

“You probably need a plumber,” Yunho says.

“Plumber, mechanic, same difference.” Minho continues to look hopeful. “A tap is kind of mechanical. It has moving parts. Sort of. Just give it a go?”

Yunho sighs. “I’ll be right back.”

He goes out to his car and fetches the toolkit he keeps in the boot for roadside emergencies. Not that this is a roadside or an emergency, but whatever. He tells himself that he’s being a nice guy, helping out these students with turbo-charged brains who struggle with ordinary, basic concepts like opening tin cans. He’d help out anyone in the same situation. It has nothing to do with wanting to impress Changmin. Nothing at all to do with the fact that, while he likes it when Changmin tells him he’s hot and sexy and has a dirty mouth that makes Changmin fall apart, Yunho also wants to hear things like _I want to spend more time with you_ and _I might have been joking about the boyfriend thing at first but now I want this to be real_.

Not that he can imagine Changmin saying either of those phrases, but Yunho is quite happy to read these messages into Changmin’s shy silences and darting glances and the way he fits so perfectly into Yunho’s arms.

The toolkit is heavy, even though it’s a vastly condensed version of the one he keeps at the garage. He lugs it up to the fifth floor. The apartment door is half open. He’s about to push it all the way and go inside when he hears Minho saying, “Yunho fixed Kyu’s broken shelf and he said he’ll fix the tap, too. Dude, you are so onto a winner here. There’s so much around this place that needs fixing or tarting up.”

Yunho is amused for approximately five seconds until he hears Changmin, loud and angry, saying, “I can’t believe you. Either of you. He’s our _guest_. He’s not a handyman.”

“Bro, we’ve had to listen to you moaning and begging for it every night so we know exactly how good he is with his hands,” Kyuhyun says, and Minho hoots with laughter.

“Oh my God.” Something slams onto the table. Changmin sounds upset. “He’s my boyfriend. He’s generous and kind and genuine and—and... Stop taking advantage, okay?”

Kyuhyun mutters, and Minho says in placatory tones, “Okay, man, chill.”

Judging the time to be right, Yunho nudges open the door, rattling the toolbox as he goes. “Hi.” He smiles at Changmin, who’s wearing cream trousers and a very pale blue shirt with a dove-grey sweater knotted by the arms around his shoulders.

“Hello.” Changmin gazes at him like an innocent little doe, as if deer could be at all impressed by guys carrying heavy stuff, and Yunho wants to drop the toolbox and take him to bed. Then Changmin straightens, casts an annoyed glance at Minho, and says, “I gather that my idiot friends have been getting you to do all the things that they’re incapable of doing for themselves. You really don’t need to do any of it.”

Yunho shrugs. “If it makes your life easier, I’m happy to help.”

“See?” Minho says, triumphant. “And you can’t deny it does make your life easier. You’ve complained about the tap for ages, saying it keeps you awake at night. And we might actually be able to eat at the table now Kyu’s shelf is fixed and he has somewhere for his books. How many times have I heard you whinging about how untidy it looks?”

Changmin turns away. “Okay. But I don’t want you giving Yunho a list of things to do. He’s on holiday. He’s supposed to be relaxing.”

“By running around town looking for a car for you,” Kyuhyun says as he wanders back in to reclaim the last of his economics books. “Sure wish I had a boyfriend who was half as devoted as yours. Or a girlfriend. Or just a friend, actually.”

Changmin is silenced. He looks appalled.

“I’ll fix that tap,” Yunho says.

*

The tap needs a new washer, so Minho is despatched to a hardware store to buy the appropriate item. Kyuhyun goes into his room and puts on some music while he rearranges the books on his full complement of shelves.

Changmin takes off his sweater and sinks down onto the couch as if exhausted.

“Tough day?” Yunho asks.

“Yes.” Changmin covers his face with his hands and sighs, shakes his head. “One of my students is a plagiarist. His essay is half lifted from one of his friends and half word-for-word from Wikipedia. You wouldn’t believe the amount of paperwork that gets generated when this kind of thing happens. And he denies it. Says his friend copied from him. The friend’s not saying anything at all. I should just fail them both but I can’t do that. There has to be a committee and... I’m sorry, this must be boring.”

“Not at all.” Yunho sits beside him and curls an arm around Changmin, pulling him close.

Changmin resists for a split-second then allows it. He nestles against Yunho, relaxing with another soft sigh. “Oh, that’s nice.”

Yunho kisses his forehead. “I missed you today.”

“I bet.” Changmin laughs a little. “Hanging out with your old friends and looking at carburettors must’ve been much more fun.” He looks up. “Thank you for the photos.”

“See one you like?”

“The blue one.”

“The Hyundai Accent?”

Changmin snuggles closer. “As I said: the blue one.”

Yunho is distracted by all this wriggling, but keeps his mind on the thread of their conversation. “The Accent is a good car. 2008 SE model. Runs well. Economical. It’s not flashy but this one has a sports trim so you can do doughnuts and look cool.”

Changmin’s shoulders shake. He looks up, gives Yunho a twinkling glance. “I thought a good mechanic would advise against doing doughnuts.”

“Nah, it flatspots your tyres and that means replacing them, so in the interests of earning a quick buck I encourage it.” Yunho beams. It feels good when Changmin leans into him and laughs. “Anyway, I can give the owner a call and arrange a test drive. See if you like it.”

“If you like it, I’ll like it.” Changmin tucks his head on Yunho’s shoulder and smiles up at him. “I only really care about the colour.”

Yunho strokes the back of his forefinger over Changmin’s cheek, down to his mouth. “You are the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Arching an eyebrow, Changmin says, “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

They kiss, sweet and uncomplicated. Changmin puts a hand on Yunho’s shoulder and presses closer. He tastes of coffee and his skin is warm and he smells of enclosed spaces and books and ink. They kiss some more, and Yunho rubs Changmin’s back, slides his touch up into the ruff of Changmin’s hair, so soft and thick. 

It’s kind of nice that they can kiss and not go straight to the rip-off-clothes-and-have-sex part every time. Not that Yunho doesn’t like that part, because he could quite happily spend a lifetime buried inside Changmin, but that’s always where he’s gone wrong with guys before and he wants this to be different. Changmin is special, and Yunho wants to treat him like he’s the most special person on the planet.

With this in mind, when they break apart and smile at one another, Yunho asks, “Are you busy tomorrow?”

Changmin moves against him. “I’ll need to dash into the department office first thing in the morning, but otherwise I’m free.” He runs a finger up Yunho’s chest. “I don’t want to look at cars, though. Can’t we do something more interesting?”

Yunho catches the teasing finger. “Let’s go out somewhere.”

Surprise crosses Changmin’s face. “You don’t want to stay in bed?”

Aware that he has to choose his words carefully, Yunho hesitates. Pretty much all he’s done since he got here is look at cars and have sex. Sure, he likes both activities, but he’s not convinced that fucking and car talk interspersed with the occasional meal out with Changmin’s friends is going to turn this into any kind of relationship.

Of course, he’s assuming that Changmin _wants_ a relationship. Maybe their wires are crossed and all Changmin wants is a week of good sex and the chance to find a decent used car. But if that’s the case then surely Changmin wouldn’t have told his flatmates that Yunho was his boyfriend. But then, ‘boyfriend’ sounds so much better than ‘some guy I shagged because I didn’t have enough money to pay for my car repairs’. But that doesn’t explain the enthusiastic notation on the calendar. 

But. But. But.

See, this is why Yunho has always gone for straightforward guys in the past. Mostly. Kind of. He prefers simple guys. Guys like him. Not beautiful, clever, _complicated_ guys who look like angels and taste like sin. He hates feeling uncertain, and Changmin seems just as uncertain, and that’s making it all worse. The only time they seem to speak the same language is in bed, but even then Changmin is holding something back. It’s almost as if he doesn’t want this to work.

Changmin is looking at him, waiting for an answer. Yunho gathers his thoughts and says, “Yes, I want to spend the rest of the week in bed with you, but I also want to go out with you.”

“Like... on a date?” The concept seems to bewilder Changmin.

“That’s what boyfriends do, right?”

“I—I’m not... I don’t...” Now Changmin looks nervous, his hands dropping from their lazy exploration of Yunho’s chest to rest motionless in his lap.

Yunho really doesn’t get it. Did Changmin’s ex-boyfriend—this shadowy man who is simultaneously perfect and a heartbreaking bastard—not take him out? What a dickhead. Any guy would be proud to have Changmin beside him. But—Yunho’s thoughts darken—maybe the ex was involved with someone else. Maybe he was married. That would explain a lot of things. Yunho wants to punch this stupid ex.

But he shouldn’t jump to conclusions. That’s not the smart thing to do, and he needs to be smart around Changmin. He takes a deep breath and nuzzles into Changmin’s hair; whispers, “Take me out, Changminnie. Show this poor ignorant country boy the bright lights of the big city.”

A chuckle breaks through Changmin’s still slightly befuddled demeanour. “All right. Where would you like to go?”

“I’m not a local. You choose. I mean, this is Seoul. There must be _somewhere_ we can go.”

Changmin is laughing now. “The cinema?”

“We can’t talk there,” Yunho says. “Well, we could, but they’d kick us out for ruining the film for everyone else.”

“Talk? Oh.” Changmin looks flustered again. “I don’t... Um. The zoo?”

Is he five years old? Yunho sighs. “A coffee shop. The park. A bowling alley.”

“Ugh, not bowling. That’s so lame.” Changmin sits up and brushes the hair from his eyes.

“I like bowling,” Yunho says mildly.

“You’re sad.” 

“A museum,” Yunho suggests instead. “A gallery. A recital of experimental Mongolian fiddle music. An exhibition of weird installation art.”

“A museum? You like museums?” Changmin repeats, clearly astonished.

“I like a lot of things.” Yunho smiles. “Get to know me. Find out what I like.”

Changmin fixes those big dark eyes on him. “Okay.” It’s a whisper. “Okay.”

Yunho moves closer, touches his cheek. “Let me in, Changminnie. I want to know you, too.”


	6. Chapter 6

Changmin refuses to say which museum they’re going to visit. He keeps on smiling and says it’s a surprise. Yunho wonders if there’s a sex museum in Seoul. That would be fun. They take the metro to Hyehwa and walk a short distance, and then Changmin points across the street and says, “There.”

Yunho stares at the building. “The Straw and Plants Handicraft Museum.” He fails to adjust his expression and looks at Changmin with something akin to horror. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

Changmin’s mouth turns down at the corners and his eyes go all wide and sad. “I love straw handicrafts. Didn’t you learn how to weave shoes from grass when you were at school? I was fastest in my year at weaving. I won an award for it.”

“Er,” Yunho says. “Maybe it was offered as an extracurricular class in Gwangju, I don’t know. The only grass I was interested in at school was smoking a bit of weed behind the bike sheds.”

“I just knew you were a bad boy.” Changmin smiles, looking animated and eager, and takes his arm as they cross the road. “Come on. This is a great museum. You’ll love it.”

Yunho wishes they’d gone to the zoo after all.

The museum is alarmingly spacious. A sign tells them that it holds three and a half thousand straw and plant items. Yunho hopes they don’t have to look at them all. He follows Changmin around the exhibition halls devoid of any other visitors and tries to appear interested in the objects on display. Changmin seems genuinely excited. He spends several minutes enthusing over a straw egg holder and talks at length about different types of grasses and the wicker basket he once made for a nationwide competition. By the time they reach the woven doors of traditional Korean houses and the section about various methods of thatching, Yunho thinks his brain has dribbled out of his ears and made a dash for freedom.

“Changmin,” he says, interrupting a monologue on ritual implements made of straw, “Changminnie, I’m sorry to be rude, but...”

“You don’t like straw?” Changmin straightens from his perusal of corn dollies, disappointment all over his face. “Oh God, you must think this is so boring.”

“It’s...” _so fucking boring I want to cry_ “not really my kind of thing,” Yunho says diplomatically.

“Oh,” says Changmin. He looks crushed. Head bowed, he turns away and walks over to a display of woven animals.

Yunho feels like shit. Summoning his last reserves of enthusiasm, he joins Changmin in front of the case and says, “But hey, those pigs are really cool. Straw pigs, that’s clever. And the straw spiders! Just look at them. So big and lifelike. They look like real spiders. Real spiders made out of straw, I mean. Must’ve taken hours to make.”

Changmin turns his head again. Makes a choking sound.

Yunho blinks. “Changmin?”

Changmin’s shoulders start quivering. He makes another noise, this one halfway between a snort and a hiccup, and the quiver becomes a shake, and Yunho realises he’s been played.

“Shim Changmin, you—” Yunho grabs for him, and Changmin dances out of the way, laughing so hard that tears stream down his face. He can’t run very far because he’s laughing too much, and he slumps against a wall, helpless with giggles, and he’s so utterly adorable that Yunho hems him in and kisses him.

Changmin stops laughing at once. He responds to the kiss on a burst of passion and then pulls back, a guilty blush on his cheeks as he glances around the hall.

“It’s just us and the straw pigs,” Yunho says. “And they don’t care.”

“You should’ve seen your face.” Changmin starts giggling again, his hair tumbling into his crinkled-up eyes. “You thought I was really keen on this stuff.”

“You’re truly evil,” Yunho agrees, his hands on Changmin’s waist beneath his jacket. “I should put you over my knee and spank you with a straw shoe.”

“I think you can buy a pair in the gift shop.” Changmin bows forward against him and dissolves into laughter again.

“What are we waiting for?” Yunho lets go and strides purposefully towards the exit. “I have straw to buy. Don’t stand in my way.” 

*

They leave the museum with a small straw pig as a souvenir and go to Gyeongbokgung Palace, dodging coach parties of tourists and wandering through the halls and pavilions with their swooping grey roofs and green blinds and red and white-painted exteriors. Inside the palace museum, Changmin talks with quiet authority about the Joseon dynasty. Yunho likes listening. He remembers a few pertinent historical facts from school and recalls enough to ask questions that don’t seem to be too stupid, given how much thought Changmin puts into his answers.

They make their way around a group of schoolchildren and head for a quieter part of the museum. Reluctant to lose the relaxed atmosphere between them, Yunho says, “So, how’s your dissertation going? Thought between East and West during the Han dynasty, right?”

Changmin looks surprised. “I can’t believe you remembered that.”

“Yeah, well. I don’t think about tyres and catalytic converters all day.”

“I thought you might prefer to think about naked French rugby players.” Changmin gives him a sidelong look, lips pressed together as if he’s trying not to laugh.

“Only in those special moments,” Yunho says airily. “And these days I think of you instead.”

That throws Changmin, and he blushes. “You say the nicest things.” 

There’s no apparent irony behind his words. Yunho feels just as flustered. They move on to look at a display case of imperial robes, silks in dark blue and red thickly covered with gold thread and with inset panels of embroidered dragons and phoenix. “Your dissertation,” Yunho says. “Tell me about it. About Western and Eastern thought.”

Changmin smiles. “That was just a conference paper. Proving actual overlaps in philosophical thought during that time is tenuous at best. Transmission of information in those days was mainly oral tradition and sometimes in the form of actual physical literature traded or given as gifts. The Silk Road crossed an enormous distance; two empires at either end, both very similar yet completely different. And in between, so much potential for ideas to flourish, to be swapped between cultures and embellished or redacted...”

“So,” Yunho says slowly, hoping this doesn’t sound as offensive as he thinks it might, “you were telling people at the conference that you didn’t actually know anything for sure but maybe this is what happened, possibly?”

“Essentially, yes.” Changmin’s eyes gleam. “In this field it’s good to have the reminder that we know everything as a possibility but very little for definite.”

“Like exploring every option until there’s only one left, and that must be correct?”

“Yes. Although things are rarely that black and white.” Changmin smiles. “But that was just a conference paper. My dissertation is actually about thought and cultural patronage under the directive of imperial policy.”

Yunho thinks about this. “Sort of like intellectual state propaganda.”

Changmin’s smile widens. “Absolutely. It’s only a comparative study, though. Not very useful in terms of bringing something new to the table, but it helps narrow down the topic I want to research for my PhD.”

They wander over to the next case, some sort of regalia belonging to a nineteenth century emperor. Yunho examines it. “Is that what you want to do? Be a professor?”

Lifting his head, Changmin brushes the hair from his eyes. “Yes. Though it means postponing military service, and that worries me a little.”

“Oh, you’ll be fine,” Yunho assures him. “There was an older guy on my posting and he was a riot. We all called him dad and went to him with our problems.”

Changmin bites his lip. “You can see why that doesn’t appeal.”

“Get on. If you’re a professor you’ll have to deal with students coming to you saying the dog ate their essays, so you may as well get used to it.”

“I suppose so.” 

They carry on, nudging against one another as they walk. Changmin looks so happy, and pride swells inside Yunho. _My boyfriend_ , he wants to tell everyone they pass. _My boyfriend is really fucking smart. And he’s hot. Yeah, he’s mine_. 

“Actually,” Changmin says, “I was hoping to be one of those professors that lives amongst all the books in his office and only emerges to go to the library when a new translation of something vaguely relevant arrives.”

“You don’t want to teach?” Yunho shoots him a curious look. “I think you’d make a great teacher.”

Changmin stops. “You do?”

“Yeah.” Yunho tilts his head and smiles. “Look at how much you taught me about straw and plant handicrafts. I could win a quiz show with the amount I know about that crap.” He shakes the bag containing the souvenir straw pig. “Me and Pig here, we’re so up on our grass knowledge, we’re unbeatable.”

Changmin starts laughing. “You’re crazy.”

“Totally.” Yunho rattles the bag again. “C’mon, me and Pig are thirsty. Buy this crazy person a beer.”

“They don’t sell beer here.”

“I’m good with coffee, too.” He gestures at the windows. “It’s nice outside. Let’s go and enjoy the sun.”

For a moment Changmin lingers beside the display case. “I do want to teach,” he says, softly.

“And you’ll be good at it.” Yunho leans against him. “Professor Shim. No, _strict_ and _demanding_ Professor Shim. I like the sound of that. Sign me up for class now.” 

“Dork.” Changmin shoves at him.

Yunho rocks back. “I’m serious. You’ll be amazing. I know, because you really have taught me something.”

Changmin turns. “What?”

Yunho smiles. “To take a chance on something new.”

* * *

Morning drags around and Yunho wakes up alone. The straw pig is perched on the desk, looking at him like it’s judging him. He has a vague memory of a phone call shattering the peace earlier on, and then Changmin had kissed him and apologised and crept away at what felt like some ungodly hour.

Yunho sits up and looks at his watch. It’s later than he thought. Getting out of bed, he opens the curtains and closes his eyes, tilting his face to the sunlight for a moment. He gets dressed, scoops all the crumpled tissues off the floor into the rubbish bin, makes a mental note to buy more condoms, then digs a blue biro from beneath the pile of articles on Changmin’s desk and makes a stab at solving one of the sudoku squares on the calendar. Except he’s really shit at sudoku, so he just writes _69_ and fills in the square beside it with a smiley face.

He goes out into the kitchen. The apartment is almost preternaturally quiet. There’s no one around. Yunho makes a cup of coffee and some toast, then wastes a good five minutes scraping off the charred bits before he eats the rest. He wanders into the living room and stares out of the windows at the view of the car park and lake and the campus, the university library a short distance away and then to the left, the Economics and Business building and the tree-lined avenue that runs all the way to the main gate.

Bored, Yunho turns on the television and flicks through the channels while he texts Changmin. When he gets no reply to his increasingly dirty messages, he gives up and pays attention to the wilderness show he’s found. Some crazy guy is eating bugs and building a bivouac out of sticks in some remote and inhospitable place. Eventually even that gets boring, and Yunho switches off the TV. He stares at his phone as if that will make Changmin reply to all those texts, and then he actually calls him, but it goes straight to voicemail.

He’s about to go back to Changmin’s room and read one of the manga when the door of the apartment opens and Minho comes in, laden down with groceries. “Hey, dude,” Minho says cheerfully, depositing the shopping on the kitchen table.

“Can I help put things away?” Yunho asks.

“Nah, I’ve got this.” Minho rustles through the bags and starts piling up all the keep-cold items to one side. “Where’s Changmin?”

“I don’t know. He had to go out early. Student drama or dissertation drama or something. I was mostly asleep when he told me.” Yunho watches as Minho shoves a colourful mass of packet noodles into a cupboard. “His phone’s off.”

“It’s Wednesday,” Minho says. “Usually he spends the whole of Wednesday in the library.”

“Oh.” Yunho remembers that Changmin had told him on Saturday that he’d have to do some work this week, and after goofing off for almost the whole of yesterday on their date, probably he needed to get a lot of stuff done today. But still, Yunho wishes he’d made arrangements to meet Changmin for lunch or something, because now he feels like a spare part.

Minho gives him a look, then opens his wallet and flips a plastic swipe card across the table. “My library card. You’ll find him on the third floor. He has a carrel towards the back of the building on the right as you go through the double doors.”

“Thanks.” Yunho picks up the library card and studies it. On it there’s a barcode and a picture of a very dour-looking Minho.

“If it’s not too much of an imposition, I’ve got some books that need to be returned.” Minho takes out some fresh vegetables and looks at them like he’s not sure what they are. “By the way, tell Changmin I’m cooking tonight. You guys might want to make alternate plans.”

Yunho leaves the apartment a few minutes later, carrying five books with titles like _Semantics and Symbolism in Late Victorian Literature_ , which sounds like a really gripping read. He cuts across the lawn in front of the dorms and jogs up the steps to the library. The windows are tinted, giving the place a slightly sinister look. Yunho follows a couple of people through the doors, uses Minho’s card to get through the turnstile, then glances around for the returns desk.

After jettisoning the books, Yunho spends a moment orienting himself. The steady hum of photocopiers blends with muted chatter and the bleep of card scanners and the more old-fashioned thump of stamps marking dates of returns. There’s a row of computers displaying the library catalogue database, and a few students are glowering at the screens or taking notes. Behind all this there’s a forest of stacks filled with books and periodicals and newspapers. Yunho wanders around looking at the titles, then climbs the main staircase to the third floor.

He passes more computer clusters, pushes through the double doors as per Minho’s directions, and finds himself in a carpeted reading room with a high ceiling, only a few bookshelves, and long, wide tables inhabited by a multitude of students. A clock ticks, the sound falling heavy into the hush. Dust motes flitter in the morning sunlight. Yunho looks around for Changmin. Minho had said he had a carrel. Yunho doesn’t know what that is, except it sounds a bit like corral and so he imagines Changmin on a ranch with tight jeans and a cowboy hat, and the thought makes him smile.

Another set of double doors leads through into the stacks. It’s darker in here, silent and shadowy and enclosed, the stacks arranged close together and reaching up to the low ceiling. It smells of paper and bindings, mellow warmth and the colder scent of new books. Yunho goes left between two stacks, fingertips trailing over the spines of a row of volumes with long, incomprehensible titles. By the time he reaches the end of the shelves, he realises there’s a pull cord at either side so students can cast light on each set of stacks.

To the left of the floor is a succession of wide, deep windows. Books and journals lie abandoned on the sills. Yunho makes his way further back, peering along the stacks. Looks like many of them don’t see a lot of action; there’s dust on some of the shelves. He reaches the back of the floor without seeing another living soul and begins to make his way forward again. Against the windows on this side are a series of partially enclosed desks with a couple of shelves and a little swing door, like the lower half of a stable door. Yunho looks inside the first few, which are empty of students but full of books. Maybe these are the carrels that Minho was talking about.

A little further on, he finds Changmin in his carrel surrounded by a pile of notes and little books covered in green binding. More books jumble across the shelves and there’s even a couple of journals open on the windowsill.

Yunho taps on the side of the carrel. “Hi.”

Changmin jumps, blinks up at him. Startled happiness shines from his face, and then he looks puzzled. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought I’d check out the latest research on straw ritual implements.” Yunho slouches against the carrel and adopts an intelligent expression. “I’ve got this theory about gift-exchange and social networks, y’see. I was going to ask Kyuhyun for his advice on the macroeconomic angle.”

Changmin presses his lips together and tries very hard not to laugh. “God, you’re full of it.”

“I certainly am.” Pushing aside some of the books, Yunho perches on the side of the desk. He takes the library card from his back pocket and waves it around. “Minho gave me this. I want to thank him by borrowing a load of porn on his behalf.”

“This is a university library.” Changmin is smiling. “The only porn you’ll find here is frightfully intellectual.”

“You say it like it’s a bad thing.” Yunho tilts his head to look at Changmin’s notes, which are in three different languages. No, three different scripts—Korean, English, and something else that rolls and curves and has accents on almost every word. Changmin must be really smart to make sense of that. Yunho smiles at him. “What’re you doing?”

“Boring stuff.” Changmin puts his pen down, laces his fingers together, and stretches them over his head, body arching in a _very_ distracting way. “My supervisor suggested going through some of the works of the Neoplatonists. I just realised how much I dislike the Neoplatonists.” He relaxes from his stretch and ruffles a hand through his hair. The sunlight catches on the angles of his face, gilding him. He really is stunning, and Yunho is knocked off-kilter by it.

Desire grabs at him, thick and swift. “Leave all that,” Yunho says, reaching out to take Changmin’s hand. “Come with me.”

“Where?” Changmin asks, but he’s on his feet without waiting for an answer.

Yunho leads him into the dusty, deserted stacks towards the back of the floor. He doesn’t turn the light on; he can see well enough for what he has in mind. They go halfway along the stack, then Yunho stops, presses Changmin against the shelves, and kisses him, hot and wet and demanding.

Changmin makes a soft, surprised sound, then kisses him back. 

“I’m going to blow you right here,” Yunho tells him.

“We shouldn’t,” Changmin whispers, but his eyes are gleaming and he paws at Yunho with barely suppressed eagerness. “Someone might come.”

“You, if I get my way.” Yunho licks a warm, wet line down Changmin’s throat into the open neck of his shirt.

Changmin trembles with laughter. “I’m serious!”

“So am I.” Yunho unzips and unbuttons Changmin’s trousers, slides a hand inside and gropes him.

“Yun _ho_.” Breathing fast, Changmin squirms. “We can’t. Honestly, we can’t.”

“Yes, we can. Just keep quiet. Really, really quiet. This is a library, after all.”

“We really shouldn’t do this. We could get caught.” Changmin is blushing, on fire with it, but he still pushes down his trousers and underwear, helping Yunho, doing it all in a rush as if afraid that he’ll change his mind. “Oh God, you’re so bad.”

Yunho looks down and admires Changmin’s cock, so stiff and pretty with such a gorgeous curve to it as it reaches high. “Baby, I’m going to be very _good_ for you.”

Changmin quivers with the effort of keeping his laughter in check, or maybe it’s a response to when Yunho puts a hand on his dick and just skims his palm over the hot, satiny head. “Stop with the dirty talk, please. I’ll just laugh and you know what happens when I laugh...”

“Yeah,” Yunho says, dark and throaty, “you get all sensitive,” and just to prove it, he cups Changmin’s balls, eases them up then tugs them down, and Changmin makes a desperate, breathless noise and turns his head away.

He’s beautiful, irresistible. Yunho bends down and licks him. Just a little lick, a tease over that fat swollen crown, and Changmin bites back a groan as he tries to shove his dick into Yunho’s mouth.

“You want it?” Yunho asks, tongue darting.

“Yes. Yes.” Changmin spreads himself out against the stack, feet wide and his hips pushed forward, his shoulders pressing back into the row of blue-bound journals.

Yunho goes down onto his knees, gets as close to Changmin’s crotch as he can without touching any part of him, then says, “Fuck my face.” 

Changmin bites his fist to stifle his moan. His other hand shoots out and grabs a handful of Yunho’s hair. He yanks Yunho towards him, breathing fast and stuttered around his fist, and when Yunho just mouths at Changmin’s cock, he jolts back against the shelves and the journals shift and slide.

“Mustn’t,” Changmin whispers, one hand still drawing Yunho closer, the other hand now gripping the edge of a shelf. 

Yunho purrs and takes Changmin deeper, relaxing his throat and jaw as Changmin bucks and thrusts, hesitant and shallow at first and then, when Yunho moans, Changmin shafts harder, faster, into his mouth. 

Changmin lets go of Yunho’s hair and grabs at the shelf with both hands. The metal rattles in protest. Yunho darts a glance upwards and sees Changmin, face flushed, hair in his eyes, teeth digging into his lower lip as he tries to keep quiet. Lust flares through Changmin’s expression when he meets Yunho’s gaze. He holds it for a moment, a deeper wave of colour washing his skin.

“Yun,” he whispers, “Yunho.”

Yunho wriggles on his knees, his erection pushing at the zipper of his jeans. It’d be easy to get his hand in there and beat off while he sucks Changmin, but that’s not what this is about. He wants this to be all for Changmin’s pleasure.

There’s the distant swing and thud of the double doors, then the squeak of shoes on the floor. Changmin gasps, anxiety and the fear of discovery making him go tense. His knuckles turn white where he’s gripping the shelf. Yunho sucks on him, working his tongue on the underside of Changmin’s dick, and Changmin’s knees buckle and he slumps lower against the stacks.

“Oh God,” he breathes, rolling his head back against the journals. His hips snap, his cock hard and thick in Yunho’s mouth. He’s so warm, the lush musky smell of his arousal dragging at Yunho’s senses. “We have to hurry,” Changmin whispers, then grabs for his dick and starts jerking it alongside Yunho’s slick, wet ministrations.

Not too far away is the sound of books being replaced on shelves. Excitement slams through Yunho. He imagines one of the neat little librarians from downstairs rounding the corner of the stacks and finding them like this, Changmin cramming his dick into Yunho’s mouth and Yunho taking it all, and oh fuck, he wants to come now, he wants to drag Changmin onto the floor and pound into him while Changmin lets go with all those loud, sexy wails.

The footsteps retreat. The double doors swing again. Changmin gasps. Yunho redoubles his efforts, saliva slurping down his chin. He pulls off for a heartbeat and watches Changmin masturbating. “Oh yeah. Work that education, baby.”

“Don’t, don’t,” Changmin moans.

“Come on my face,” Yunho urges. “I want it. Cover me.”

Changmin lurches, almost unbalances. “Fuck. _Fuck_.”

Yunho swallows him again, takes his cock until his lips meet Changmin’s hand, and then he draws back, working on the head, the bitter pre-come thickening on his tongue. Changmin’s dick jerks, heat and flavour increasing, his balls high and tight.

“Yunho,” Changmin whisper-gasps, “I’m coming, oh, I’m gonna—”

Yunho sucks Changmin’s cock hard against the roof of his mouth then releases him as Changmin begins to spurt, sitting back on his knees and tilting his head at just the right angle for Changmin to decorate his face with delicate white ropes of seed.


	7. Chapter 7

On Thursday, Changmin takes the blue Hyundai Accent for a test drive. Yunho sits beside him and points out its faults, the worst one being that the rattling sound as they corner is a sign that the bearings are going.

“What do you think?” Yunho asks when they arrive back at the owner’s house.

Changmin stares through the windscreen, his lips pressed together. He thinks for a long time, and then he turns to Yunho and smiles. “I like the colour.”

Yunho wants nothing more than to kiss him for that. Instead, he snorts and gets out and bargains down the price on account of the bearings, the tiny patch of rust behind the offside rear wheel, and a couple of dings in the paintwork. The owner, a friend of one of Yunho’s old army acquaintances, gripes and mutters but eventually agrees to a reduction of seven hundred thousand won.

He tells Changmin to put the money he’s saved towards the insurance, but Changmin says he’s going to spend some of it on taking Yunho out for dinner that night. He makes the mistake of saying this in front of Kyuhyun, who tries to invite himself along and gets quite persistent about it, saying that Changmin totally owes him a meal after accidentally on purpose forgetting his wallet last time they’d gone out together. Minho manages to cause a diversion by treading on the box of one of the Playstation games, and while Kyuhyun harangues him for his clumsiness, Yunho and Changmin flee the apartment.

They eat Kazakh food, yaprak dolma and some sort of marinated fish thing, followed by chak-chak, clusters of pastry mixed with sultanas and chopped nuts all drenched in melting-sticky rosewater syrup. They drink beer and smile at each other and talk a lot about nothing very much.

Afterwards, they go to the Han River. Changmin parks his new car away from the other courting couples and the groups of students hanging out trying to impress one another. He pushes back the driver’s seat, a wicked glint in his eyes. 

“Dinner was the first part of the thank you,” he says, licking his lips. “This is the second part.” He goes down on Yunho and spends a good long time playing and teasing before he finally sucks him off.

Yunho comes so hard he bangs his elbow on the side of the car. The pain isn’t enough to dim his pleasure, but it does get him some sympathy and a lot of kisses that taste of the salt-bitterness of his semen and the sweetness of rosewater. 

They cuddle together, Changmin half on the passenger seat and half on the handbrake as he rests his head on Yunho’s shoulder. It must be an uncomfortable position, but he doesn’t make a single word of complaint. He just curls close and presses his cold nose against Yunho’s throat. At length he asks quietly, “Do you have to go home tomorrow?”

“No. But Donghae might kill me if I don’t.” Yunho tries to make light of it. “He’s already sent me seven emails about the jobs that have come in while I’ve been off gallivanting around the big city.”

Changmin lifts his head. He looks very serious. “I really like you.”

Tension twists between them. The breath jams in Yunho’s throat. “I like you, too.” Such a pathetic way of describing what he feels, but it seems to be the right time to utter banalities.

“Will you come back and see me again?” Changmin’s eyes are wide and deep, his expression endless in the uneven light from the river. 

“Yes.” Another inadequate answer. Yunho hates his sudden inability to express himself. He touches Changmin’s face, his mouth. “Try to stop me.”

That earns him a smile. Changmin dips his head, his hair falling forward. “This has been the best week of my life.”

“Yeah,” Yunho agrees. “That straw museum was really special. I’ll never forget it.”

The tension breaks. Changmin cracks up, shoulders shaking. He thumps Yunho. “Idiot.”

“It _was_ ,” Yunho protests. “It was _really_ cool.” He tousles a hand through Changmin’s hair and kisses him. “I just love straw now. I’m going to take up weaving in my spare time and make you a whole family of straw animals to be friends with Pig.”

“The sad thing is I actually believe you.” Changmin giggles and extricates himself from their embrace, sliding back into the driver’s seat. He leans against the headrest. “Yunho.” He looks all serious again. “Yunho, I want to tell you something. Something about—”

His phone starts ringing. Changmin exclaims in annoyance and pulls it from his pocket. The display shows a grinning picture of Kyuhyun. With a sigh, Changmin takes the call. “What? No. No, you didn’t. It’s fine. What do you want?” He falls silent after that, except for a few ‘uh-huhs’, and then he says, “All right, but if I do this then you leave us alone for the rest of the night, okay?”

Kyuhyun obviously agrees, because Changmin hangs up and exhales heavily. His mouth presses into a tight line, and then he says, “Kyu wants me to bring back a takeaway for him and Minho. I hope you don’t mind.”

Yunho shrugs. “It’s your car. Stink it out with curry and kimchi and whatever you like, see if I care.”

“That’s not...” Changmin stops. Smiles. He looks tired. “Sorry.”

Yunho strokes his thumb over Changmin’s lips. “It’s okay. What were you going to tell me?”

Changmin shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s get their food and go home. I want you to take me to bed.”

* * *

Yunho manages to delay his departure until midday. He spends another half an hour standing in the kitchen kissing Changmin goodbye. Every time they break for air, Changmin utters things like _Drive safe_ or _Did you pack all your underwear_ , and he’s so bossy that Yunho can’t resist and kisses him again, and the time keeps on slipping away.

“Text me when you get home,” Changmin murmurs against his mouth.

“I’ll call you,” Yunho promises. “I’ll call you and I’ll tell you exactly how much I’m missing you.”

“Miss me a lot.” Changmin kisses him again. 

Kyuhyun walks into the kitchen and makes a retching noise. “Is he still here?”

Changmin stiffens with annoyance and sends his friend a death-glare. “Kyu...”

“Seriously, dude.” Kyuhyun ignores Changmin’s antagonism and addresses Yunho instead. “Feel free to visit again. We’ll have more shit for you to fix and Minho says he will totally trounce you at Monaco, but between you and me he always ends up in the barrier at the Rascasse so you should actually be more worried about my skills.”

Yunho nods. “Fine. I’ll take you on at Monaco if we can race at Spa.”

“You’re on. And—”

Changmin interrupts. “Excuse me. Saying goodbye to my boyfriend here.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Kyuhyun flaps a hand and wanders off. “See you later, bro. You weren’t as lame as we thought you’d be.”

Yunho snorts, then goes back to kissing Changmin. He could get lost in this, the heady sensation of Changmin’s beautiful mouth flowering under his kisses, the scent and taste and heat of him. It’s addictive, intoxicating; Yunho wants to fill up on it, knowing it’ll be a while until he can hold Changmin again. 

That thought makes him want to drag Changmin back to bed, but someone has to be sensible and he really needs to get on the road. With regret he puts a staying hand on Changmin’s chest. Changmin’s eyes are dreamy, rich with desire. Yunho aches for one more kiss, one more touch, but controls himself and clears his throat and aims for a light-hearted tone as he fishes his keys from his back pocket. “Almost forgot,” he says, pressing the fob into Changmin’s hand. “Here.”

Changmin blinks at them. “What’s this?”

“My car keys. Take the BMW for a while.”

“But,” Changmin says, half baffled, half suspicious, “I just bought the Hyundai.”

“Yes,” Yunho says patiently, “and it needs a full service and the bearings need replacing, so I’m going to take your car back to Gwangju and I’m going to sort it all out for you.”

Changmin looks stunned. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I do.” Yunho smiles. “I’m your boyfriend.”

* * *

The Hyundai Accent handles well on the open road. Changmin’s driving is city-cautious and there’s nothing wrong with that, but on the way back to Gwangju Yunho floors the pedal and takes mental notes on the car’s performance. It understeers at speed, but has plenty of traction to keep it going without the back end stepping out. The engine has a satisfying growl to it. Yunho likes cars that talk to him.

He arrives home just as the sun is starting to set. Five cars, including Donghae’s flash new Mazda MX5 sports coupe, are parked on the forecourt or on the street. The garage doors are wide open and the lights are on at the back. Gangsta rap belts out of the portable CD player, and Donghae is sitting behind the desk, a bottle of beer in one hand and the logbook in the other. A Toyota Yaris sits cheek by jowl with a Honda Civic, both with their bonnets propped open and a scatter of tools left on the ground as if Donghae was switching back and forth between jobs.

Yunho is somewhat surprised that the garage is still open. True, they’ve got a lot of work lined up for the next couple of weeks, but even so. Come Friday evening, Donghae is usually out of there like a shot, claiming that he needs to get ready for whatever big date he’s lined up for that night.

Donghae gets up from the desk and takes a swig of beer, watching as Yunho parks the Hyundai in the spot usually reserved for his BMW. The second Yunho opens the door, Donghae calls, “Bro, what is this? What happened to your Beemer?”

“Changmin has it. This is his new car.”

“You swapped cars?” The idea seems to rattle Donghae, who needs another gulp of beer.

Yunho pats the bonnet of the Hyundai. “It needs some work. Some tuning. The bearings are going. I told him I’d fix it.”

“You’re out of your tiny mind.” Donghae gestures at the logbook with the bottle. “We’ve got jobs coming out of our fucking ears and you want to piss about with your cute little boyfriend’s cute little car.”

Yunho considers Donghae’s belligerent stance and says, very mildly, “Jessica didn’t put out yet, I guess.”

“Bro!” Donghae protests, but he calms down, looking just the slightest bit embarrassed. “You’re such a wanker.”

“Don’t need to do it myself, I have Changmin for that.”

A pained expression scrunches Donghae’s face. “Ugh, please. The mental images. Do not want.”

Yunho laughs. “Sorry, dude.” He wanders over and hangs the Hyundai’s keys in the locker, then leans over the desk, turning the logbook around to study it. “Okay, so where are we with this?”

“I’m running diagnostics on the Civic but I think the electrics are buggered. That thing’s so old I’m surprised it can be started with anything less than a hammer.” Donghae flicks back a page. “Mrs Kim booked her Kia Avella in for a service but she wants you to do it. Said you’re more reliable. Don’t know what gave her that idea, but she seems to think you’re a nice young man rather than the despoiler of innocents.”

“Changmin’s not innocent.”

“Don’t need to know,” Donghae sing-songs. “As for the Yaris, the radiator’s leaking and needs replacing, but the owner has asked us to patch it up for now. It’ll probably go another five hundred miles with careful handling. Take a look; I could do with a second opinion.” 

They go through the rest of the logbook in detail, dividing the work between them and roughing out a timetable.

“Because of your week off shagging, we’re kind of behind on some stuff,” Donghae says, straight-faced. “Are you up for working through some of the weekend?”

“Sure,” Yunho says. “I’ll see to Changmin’s car in my spare time. Before breakfast only. Promise.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Donghae eyes him with mistrust, then shifts his attention to the Hyundai. “How much was it?”

“Three point eight million.”

Donghae sniffs. “You were robbed.”

“Hardly. The asking price was four and a half.” 

“Fucking hell.” His face a mask of disbelief, Donghae shakes his head. “Big city prices. People up north must be idiots.” He flicks a glance at Yunho. “Talking of which, I can’t believe you left him your pride and joy. He’s just a kid. He’ll probably pile all his little friends into it and go on a bender, and when you get it back it’ll smell of puke and weed and it’ll have mushrooms growing in the back, all _Trash My Ride_. Telling you, bro, it’ll happen.”

“He’s twenty-three, not fourteen.” Yunho pencils the Hyundai into the logbook. “I trust him.”

“How many lampposts are there in Seoul, anyway? Bet he hits them all.”

Yunho gives Donghae a warning look. “Hae...”

“If you were remotely straight there’d be a word for you, and that word is ‘pussy-whipped’,” Donghae continues, stepping smartly out of the way when Yunho jabs at him. “Is there a gay boy equivalent? Cock-whipped? ‘Cos that just sounds kinky.”

“Dude. Enough.”

Donghae skips around the far side of the desk, chortling. “Whipped, you’re so whipped.”

“I’d do this for anyone. Any friend.”

“You’re the world’s worst liar.” The amusement gone from his eyes, Donghae leans forward and fixes his gaze on Yunho. “Listen, bro, he’s just some rich college boy who wants to fool around with a guy who gets his hands dirty. Take it from me, I know his type. Or at least the female equivalent. The moment you fix his toy motor he’ll dump you so fast you won’t know what’s hit you.”

A pang of uncertainty drives cold splinters into Yunho’s good mood. What Donghae is saying is a little too close to some of the thoughts he’s been entertaining on and off this week, and although he doesn’t think it’s true, there’s always the tiniest possibility that it might be. 

“Changmin’s not like that,” Yunho says, flat and without bravado and hoping he doesn’t sound any more whipped than he does already. “You don’t know him.”

“Yeah, but I know you.” Donghae’s expression relaxes as he aims for a jovial air. “Mate, don’t get too hung up on this kid, all right? I mean, have fun and all, but... y’know. Don’t start thinking it’s more than it is. Because every time you do that, it turns to shit and I have to spend days, no, _weeks_ , trying to drag you out of your patheticity.”

“That’s not a word.”

Donghae rolls his eyes. “I just invented it as an accurate representation of your state of mind after you’ve been dumped.”

“Whatever.” Yunho closes the logbook and shrugs off his leather jacket, slinging it over the back of the chair behind the desk. “I’ll look at the radiator on the Yaris.” 

“You just got here,” Donghae says. “I know I said we’re behind, but... Take a few minutes at least.”

Yunho nods. He should probably get changed into something more appropriate for scrabbling about on the floor beneath engines. “I need to call Changmin anyway.”

Donghae grunts and goes back to his beer.

Retreating to the other side of the garage, Yunho leans against Changmin’s car and calls him. The phone rings twice before it’s answered. “Hi. It’s me.”

“Hello.” Changmin’s voice is quiet and husky. There’s a long pause, and then he laughs; a small, embarrassed sound. “You got back okay, then. The car didn’t give you any trouble.”

“No. It was good to open it up over a distance. I think you’ll be happy with it.”

“Great.” Silence again. It’s awkward. Changmin is holding back. 

Yunho pictures him in his room, head tipped forward with the sexy pale length of his nape exposed and his hair falling into his eyes, and feels weak with tension and lust. “Changminnie...”

“You’re in the garage, aren’t you?” Changmin asks at the same time. “I can hear music. Not your kind of music, either. Donghae’s there?”

“Yeah.”

“Gwangju gangsta rap.” Now Changmin sounds amused. Another pause; a quick breath. “I miss you.” His voice has gone low, the note pitched just right to send a shiver straight down Yunho’s spine.

Fuck. Three words and he’s hard. Yunho shoves a hand into his pocket and walks briskly towards the back of the garage. He coughs. “Miss you, too.”

Changmin makes a soft, shuddery sound. “I wish you were still here.”

Oh God, he can’t have this kind of conversation with Donghae standing less than ten feet away. Yunho glances over his shoulder and sees his so-called best friend staring at him with a suspicious look.

“Babe, don’t talk like that.”

Laughter bubbles out of Changmin. “ _Babe_?”

“Sorry. I mean—um, uh...” Caught between Changmin’s tentative flirtation and the reality of Donghae glaring at him, Yunho feels flustered. And horny. But not because of Donghae. He flails.

“Are you turned on, hot rod?” Changmin asks, all giggly.

“Don’t call me that.” Yunho is dying inside.

“Only if you promise not to call me ‘babe’ again. It’s so terribly demeaning.”

“That’s not fair,” Yunho protests. “I call all my lovers ‘babe’ so I don’t have to remember their names.”

Changmin’s laughter really is infectious. “But I know I’m special. You told me so right after I gave you a blowjob.”

Yunho snorts. “Didn’t your mama tell you? You should never believe anything a man says after a blowjob.”

Another pause. “Yunho,” Changmin says, and now he sounds serious, “I had the best time this week. Thank you.”

“No problem.” Yunho catches himself smiling like an idiot.

“Um, so how long do you think it’ll take to fix the bearings?”

Yunho glances at Donghae again, who’s doing a piss-poor job of pretending not to be listening in on the one-sided conversation. “We’ve got a lot of work in, so I’m thinking maybe two weeks.”

“Then I’ll see you again in a fortnight.” Changmin sounds happier already.

“Yeah. Yeah, you will.” Ugh, if he smiles any more his face will crack, but he can’t seem to stop himself. “You can always call me, though. To check on the progress, I mean. So you know where I’m at with it. Or if you want to say hi to the car.”

He can almost hear Changmin smiling down the phone. “I can’t call you because you’re my boyfriend?”

“Yeah, you can.” Triumph glows warm and satisfied inside Yunho. “Call me whenever you like.”

There’s the clatter of metal on concrete as Donghae drops a spanner on the floor, probably deliberately. “Dude, enough with the phone sex!”

Flipping a time-honoured gesture in Donghae’s direction, Yunho says, “I have to go.”

“Okay.” Changmin pauses, then murmurs, “Miss you.”

Yunho wants to wrap himself up in those words and snuggle up inside them. “I know. Dream of me, yeah? ‘Cos—”

“Jung, stop, the cheese is killing me!” Donghae shouts across the garage.

Changmin is still laughing when he hangs up.

Refusing to be embarrassed by his attempt at romance, Yunho pockets his phone and turns to face Donghae. “Thanks for that.”

Instead of laughing, Donghae looks at him with a weird expression. “You really like this guy.”

Yunho lifts his chin. “Yeah. I do.”

“Oh man.” Donghae shakes his head. “You’re so screwed.”


	8. Chapter 8

Two weeks isn’t that long. The time flies by, helped by the fact that they’re flat out at work. As much as he enjoys getting his hands dirty and making an engine sing again, Yunho looks forward to the evenings, when he locks up the garage and sits at the desk with the smell of oil and metal and paint around him, or when he goes out back and sprawls on the couch amidst the clutter of his life, and finally he can hear Changmin’s voice.

They’re getting closer every night. The distance seems to help rather than hinder. Changmin is more talkative and sounds more confident with each conversation. He flirts more, too, and he’s bold over the phone in the same way that he’s shy in person. Yunho thinks this is the thing he loves most about Changmin.

“It’s like I have two boyfriends wrapped up in one hot package,” he says.

Changmin goes quiet at that. “Which one do you prefer?”

“Both.” Yunho listens to the silence on the line. “You’re amazing.”

The silence continues. Yunho wonders if the call dropped, but then he hears Changmin’s soft exhalation. “You always know the right thing to say to me.”

“Of course.” Yunho wishes he could send flowers and rainbows and sunshine through his phone. “You’re my boyfriend.”

Towards the end of the month there’s a resurgence of good weather, and Gwangju basks in an Indian summer. The heat reminds Yunho of the day Changmin walked into the garage, and he spends a lot of time daydreaming and smiling as he works on a succession of Hyundais and Nissans.

One afternoon, Donghae announces that his girlfriend Jessica will be calling in after she’s finished class. “She’s bringing her friends,” he says. “Let’s hope they all have cars that need fixing.”

“Maybe her friends just want to check you out,” Yunho suggests as he replaces the fan belt in an old EF Sonata. “Maybe she wants their opinion on whether or not you’re a good catch.”

Donghae huffs. “Of course I’m a good catch. A great catch, actually. I have my own business—”

“A half-share in your own business,” Yunho reminds him.

“My own business,” Donghae continues, glaring, “and I’m hot and funny and drive a fast car and I work out and I’m hot...”

“You’re modest, too, don’t forget that.”

“Thanks, bro. I’ll write that one down. Maybe you could ask your brainy little boyfriend how to spell it.” Donghae spins his phone on top of the logbook. He seems uncharacteristically hesitant. “Do you really think her friends are coming here to give me the once-over?”

Yunho shrugs. “What do I know about girls? But yeah, I think they are.”

“If I impress them, maybe she’ll sleep with me.” A fretful expression tightens Donghae’s features.

“You haven’t yet?” That’s a surprise. Usually Donghae nails a girl within a week or so of meeting her and then moves on. To find out that he’s been dating Jessica for well over a month and she still hasn’t slept with him is something of a shock.

It seems to embarrass Donghae, too. He looks mournful. “Dude, I’m slipping. I kind of like her.”

“That’s a good thing.”

“Not really.” Scuffing at the concrete floor, Donghae spins his phone again. Suddenly he brightens. “Hey, maybe one of her friends is hot. And easy. That would solve the problem.”

Yunho snorts. “Believe me, bro: that would cause even more problems.”

Donghae rolls his eyes. “Whatever. I’m not taking advice from a gay boy whose idea of romance is to fix a car.”

They continue their good-natured bickering for a while longer. Donghae’s acerbity is indicative of his uncertain mood, and Yunho makes allowances. Even so, it’s a relief when they hear the sound of bubblegum pop from a car radio along the street.

“Pretend to be straight,” Donghae begs when Jessica’s bright pink Audi A3 Cabriolet draws up on the forecourt and five girls in mini-dresses, tight trousers and cute tops get out. “Stare at their tits. Girls like that.”

Yunho isn’t too sure about this advice, so he just smiles at the girls and gets on with his work. He listens in on their conversation, which mostly consists of Donghae trying to describe car repair as something wildly glamorous. The really tragic thing is that the girls seem to be buying it, but then Donghae has always been an expert at bullshit.

The heat shimmers through the open doors of the garage. Dust hangs in the air. Yunho wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. His hair draggles into his eyes, damp with sweat. He puffs a breath at his fringe, then thinks _fuck it, why not_ and takes off his t-shirt. A chorus of squeals and giggles erupts behind him. Amused, Yunho looks over at Donghae, who gives him a surreptitious thumbs-up.

His phone rings. Yunho glances at the display, answers it. “Hey you.”

“Hello.” Changmin’s voice slides over him like a caress. Yunho distracts himself by hanging his t-shirt over a pile of tyres at the back of the garage. 

“Is this a bad time?” Changmin asks. “You sound busy.”

“Donghae is entertaining.” Yunho flicks a glance at his friend, who’s surrounded by the girls as he distributes beer and soda from the fridge behind the desk. He looks like a man very much in his element.

“And are you part of the entertainment?”

Yunho bites the inside of his cheek to stop from laughing. “Hm. Maybe a little.” He doesn’t catch what Changmin says in response, because at that moment one of Jessica’s friends, a pretty girl with long dark wavy hair, comes over and offers him a bottle of chilled water, saying, “You look hot.”

Maybe he imagined the double entendre. Yunho takes the water with his free hand and smiles at her. “Thanks.”

Changmin splutters. “Is that a _girl_ hitting on you?”

“She’s just being friendly.”

This provokes an I-don’t-believe-you snort, and then Changmin heaves a sigh and says, “You don’t have your shirt on, do you?”

“Actually... no.”

“Trust me,” Changmin says, “she’s hitting on you.”

Yunho turns away to hide his expression from the girl, who’s still gazing at him like she’s found her favourite dessert in the bargain bin. “It’s not that bad.”

“I don’t believe you.” Now Changmin is laughing. “Ask her to take a photo. I want to see how hot you look.”

An imp of devilry prods Yunho. “Okay. I’ll talk to you later.” He cuts the call and beckons the girl over, holding out his phone. “Do me a favour? Would you mind taking a photo of me?”

“S-sure.” The girl blushes, bites her lip and looks back at her friends in search of encouragement or envy or maybe both. Donghae seems pleased by this display of heterosexual flirting, no doubt scenting plenty of future trade.

The girl backs up a few steps and lifts the phone.

“Wait a moment.” Yunho uncaps the bottle of water she gave him and empties the contents all over himself. He flicks back his head, water flying everywhere, droplets running down his bare chest. Leaning back against the bonnet of the Sonata, he smiles. “Do it now.”

Jessica and her friends are frozen. The girl holding his phone looks as if she’s about to faint. Donghae’s jaw is somewhere in the region of his feet.

“Oh, um. Er.” The girl fumbles with the phone and takes a picture. She shuffles over to him shyly, staring everywhere but his face as he checks the quality of the photo before he sends it to Changmin. She tries to see what he’s doing. “Are you sending that to your girlfriend?”

Yunho flashes her another smile. “My boyfriend.”

Disappointment pulls at her face. “Shit.”

“Dude, no!” Donghae shouts, waving his arms as if he can erase the last thirty seconds. He gives up and calls out to the girl, “Don’t believe him! He’s totally bisexual!”

A text arrives from Changmin. It consists of one word: _Tease_.

Yunho laughs.

The girl moves closer. “Do you have a photo of your boyfriend?”

“Of course.” Proud to be able to show him off, Yunho scrolls through his phone and finds his favourite, a picture of Changmin by the lake near Hyangwonjeong Pavilion at the imperial palace. He’s laughing, one hand in his hair to ruffle the back. It’s the gesture he usually makes when he’s uncertain, but that time it was because Yunho had messed his hair up right before he’d taken the photo.

The girl sighs. “Oh wow, he’s gorgeous,” she says, then flicks Yunho a hopeful look. “Are you really bisexual?”

*

It turns out that Jessica’s friends don’t seem to care if Yunho is straight or not. They bring their cars in anyway. Donghae says it’s because he offered them all a ten percent discount.

“No,” Changmin says when Yunho tells him this, “it’s because they want to turn you.”

“I think they’d rather turn us both,” Yunho says. “They think you’re a babe. Let me know if you fancy a threesome. Or a foursome. I’m sure I can arrange something.”

“Hot rod,” Changmin says, voice dripping sweetness, “I’m only just used to phone sex. Let’s leave the advanced stuff until after we’re married, okay?”

* * *

It takes a little longer than a fortnight, but Yunho is finished with the Hyundai by late September. He calls Changmin with the news at the start of the week and receives a muted response.

“Thought you’d be pleased,” he says, unable to keep the annoyance from his tone.

“I am.” Changmin sounds weary and resigned, and then his voice heats. “I want to see you. Oh God, I’m desperate to see you. But I have to visit my parents this weekend and I can’t rearrange it. They’re—particular. I’m sorry.” A pause in which Yunho can hear Changmin’s breathing, rapid and angry. “I want to see you.”

“I’ll come up on Wednesday,” Yunho says. “I’ll stay overnight and drive back first thing in the morning.”

“That’s...” Changmin stops himself. Yunho fills in the gap: _Brilliant. Romantic. The thing I want most right now_. “That’s crazy,” Changmin says.

“Yeah.” Yunho scribbles a finger over the bonnet of the Hyundai. Crazy is almost the same as romantic, after all. “I want to see you, too. And I’m not going to wait another week.”

Donghae tells him he’s a tragic loser and writes a bill for all the work Yunho did on Changmin’s car. Yunho tears it up and shoves the pieces down the back of Donghae’s shirt. Donghae tells him again in some detail that he’s whipped and that he expects to see Yunho on a really long leash when he gets back.

The drive to Seoul is without incident. Yunho stops once close by the university to fill the car with fuel. Yeah, he’s whipped and he doesn’t care. When he arrives on campus, he finds Changmin waiting for him. 

It’s a warm evening, a slight breeze ruffling the surface of the artificial lake. The trees bend and rustle, and the smell of newly-mown grass hangs in the air. Changmin is wearing jeans and a white shirt and a brown suede jacket, and his hair is even longer and the fringe is sort of scrunched. He looks model-like and sophisticated except for the part where he’s perched on the bonnet of the BMW as if he’s afraid that the rivets on his jeans will ding the paintwork.

Yunho parks the Hyundai next to his car. He had a whole checklist of things to tell Changmin, but now they’re here and Changmin is right in front of him all lithe and wide-eyed and beautiful, Yunho can scarcely remember how to breathe, let alone hold more than very basic thoughts in his head.

They swap keys, and Yunho says, “Tell me there aren’t any mushrooms growing in the back of my car.”

Changmin’s brow furrows. “What?”

“Never mind.” Donghae was full of shit when he made that comment anyway. Yunho has the utmost faith in Changmin’s driving ability. He smiles. “Want to go for a spin in your new improved motorised vehicle?”

Changmin gazes at him. “Would I seem very ungrateful if I said ‘not right now’?”

“Yeah. I’d be really hurt.” Yunho puts on a sad, serious face. “I spent a lot of time working on this and had to cope with Donghae nagging at me to do something more interesting like watching the football or going drinking or going bowling—”

“We’ve already established that bowling is lame,” Changmin says, tossing his head so his hair flicks out of his eyes. “Admit it, you enjoyed working on Blue.”

Yunho stops. “Blue.”

“Cars should have names.” Changmin gives him an ingenuous look.

“That’s not a name, it’s a description.”

“I named your car, too.” A smile quivers on Changmin’s lips. “Red.”

Yunho stares. Shakes his head. “This is what all your education has done for you, huh.” He hooks a finger between Changmin’s shirt buttons and pulls him closer. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

Changmin giggles, tries to squirm away. His hair flops back into his eyes, and he’s blushing. “Not out here, there might be—”

“There’s no one around.” Yunho hauls him in, closer, closer, breathing in his familiar scent, the one thing that’s been imperfect in his memory all this time. Changmin leans against him, one hand tucked into the back pocket of Yunho’s jeans, and he smiles, his lashes fluttering and his skin sweet and warm.

“I missed you so much.” Yunho didn’t mean to say that, especially not in such an awed tone, but it’s out there now and he’s not going to be ashamed of it. 

Turns out it’s the right thing to say, because Changmin makes a tiny noise and breaks first, puts his mouth against Yunho’s, just a brush of lips, an invitation, and Yunho takes it, lifts both hands to cup Changmin’s face and kisses him like it’s going out of fashion.

Changmin pushes him back just a little, gaze hot and avid. “Let’s go inside.”

All chance of thank-you sex is scuppered when they walk into the apartment to find Kyuhyun and Minho standing in the kitchen with expectant looks on their faces.

“At last,” Minho says. “We’ve been waiting ages.”

“Yeah,” says Kyuhyun, “we even watched out of the window while you two were all over each other. As if it wasn’t traumatic enough last time. It’s kind of worse when you have to see it through binoculars.”

Changmin looks horrified. “What are you guys _on_?”

Kyuhyun approximates a soothing gesture. “Dude, be calm. We needed to know when you’d arrive so we could set up the game.”

“Ah,” Yunho says, realising what this is all about. “Monaco, right?”

“Minho’s been practicing.” Kyuhyun opens the door to the living room to reveal the F1 game ready and waiting and with the Monte Carlo circuit selected. “He’s better at the Rascasse now but he’s still shit around the Swimming Pool.”

“Also,” Minho says as he settles onto the floor with his controller, “we’ve decided you can’t drive Red Bull, McLaren or Ferrari, unless you’re Massa. So I think you should pick Lotus or HRT.”

Changmin looks like he doesn’t know whether to be angry or amused. “Um, guys— _my_ boyfriend, not your new toy.”

“Dude, we’re just thinking of you.” Kyuhyun sits down on the rug and selects Jenson Button from the driver menu. “You need a rest before you get to it. I mean, you’ve been wanking every morning and night since he was last here—”

“I have not!” Changmin goes bright red.

“Can totally hear you through the wall, bro. Saying his name even when he’s not here. It’s weird.” Kyuhyun puts on a breathy voice. “Oh, oh _Yun_ ho!”

Changmin picks up a cushion from the sofa, his hands clenched tight. “Bastards. You bastards.”

Minho looks up. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Fine.” Apparently resigning himself to events, Changmin hurls the cushion to the far end of the couch and sits himself down. He beckons Yunho, points at the screen. “Play the game.”

It wasn’t quite what Yunho had had in mind. “We don’t have to.”

“No, I want you to.” Changmin gives him a bright, adoring smile and shuffles along the sofa to make room for him. “Come and play.”

“Okay.” Suspicion rings bells all over the place, but Yunho is nothing if not polite and amenable and so he sits beside Changmin and accepts the controller that Kyuhyun tosses towards him. While Minho attempts to sell him on the finer points of some frankly shit backmarkers, Yunho goes through the remainder of his driver options and picks Michael Schumacher.

The race starts. Determined not to be caught napping this time, Yunho makes a decent start, up to fourth out of the first corner. It’s difficult to overtake at Monaco, but since Minho is directly ahead of him and bearing in mind what Kyuhyun had said, Yunho decides to harry Minho’s Vettel as they go around Portier. Just as they exit the Tunnel and get on the brakes for the quick flick chicane, Changmin puts a hand on Yunho’s knee and rubs up the inside of his thigh.

“Um,” Yunho says, and clips the kerb, bouncing the Mercedes across the track.

Minho chortles, but doesn’t look up to see what caused the incident.

Kyuhyun’s Button is out in front, although Minho claims that a cheat was utilised, a charge Kyuhyun flatly denies. Their squabble slows their drivers as they coast past Casino Square. Yunho catches them in fits and starts, aware the whole time of Changmin’s hand. 

It’s warm and knowing, Changmin’s hand, and it’s on Yunho’s cock now, the heel of his palm pressing down against the hard ridge. Yunho can barely keep his focus and almost drops it at the old Loews hairpin. When he rights the car, he gets tangled with a Renault and loses part of his front wing. Fighting massive understeer, he crawls Schumacher into the pits for a new nose.

Changmin curls up closer as Yunho waits for the pit crew to change the front and the tyres. Taking advantage of the delay, Changmin nuzzles at Yunho’s throat, kisses his neck, bites his earlobe. Desire spreads sticky heat all the way through him. Yunho chokes back a moan. The lollipop guy signals Schumacher on his way, and Yunho sprints out of the box, forgetting to engage the limiter. By the time he’s back on the track, a message pops up informing him of a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pitlane.

Yunho is conscious of both Kyuhyun and Minho laughing their asses off over his complete fail. He’s also aware of Changmin’s tongue-tip tracing the shape of his ear and Changmin’s voice, low and soft, purring, “Spread me open and fill me with your big thick cock, make me beg for it, make me _scream_...” 

He’s so hard it’s painful, and if Changmin keeps on whispering, keeps on stroking him like that, he’s going to come in his pants.

Yunho makes a valiant effort to control himself and Schumacher. Even though he’s down to sixteenth after that unscheduled pit stop, he manages half a lap at a decent speed and passes two cars.

Changmin stops touching, stops whispering. He gets up from the sofa and gives Yunho a long, dirty look, then heads for the door.

“Fuck it,” Yunho mutters, and drives Schumacher into the barriers at Ste Devote. He tosses the controller aside and levers himself off the couch in pursuit of Changmin, leaving Kyuhyun and Minho to shout protests and complaints in their wake. 

* * *

Next morning, Yunho wakes alone. He grumbles, cursing Changmin’s breakfast meeting with his supervisor, and huddles into the duvet, nose pressed into the pillow to breathe in Changmin’s scent. It kind of makes him horny, and Yunho stretches out and gives himself a tug, rubs against the mattress, then decides it’s nowhere near as much fun on his own. Instead he drowses for a while and then rolls out of bed and gets dressed.

He opens the curtains and looks out at the day. It’s dull and overcast. Boring weather for driving home. Yunho wrinkles his nose. Though he’d like nothing better than to linger here and maybe see Changmin when he gets out of his meeting in a couple of hours, Yunho knows he really should get a move on. Donghae will start calling him soon, asking what time he’ll be back at the garage, and Yunho can do without the nagging.

He goes over to Changmin’s desk and investigates the calendar. His name is on there again in purple biro. It’s underlined this time, with a box around it. Yunho decides this is Changmin’s version of hearts and flowers. Pleased with this thought, he picks up a green pen and fills in a number at random on the sudoku.

There’s a pile of new stuff arranged on the desk around where the laptop would usually be. Yunho pokes amongst the articles, admiring Changmin’s handwriting in English even though he doesn’t recognise half of the words, and then tucked underneath the little straw pig he finds a college prospectus. _University of Cambridge_ , it says in English. He can read that well enough. There are pictures of clever, smiling Westerners in front of a grand building made of pale stone, and there’s trees and a river and more clever people in academic gowns and a shot of some smart people drinking tea and laughing together.

Yunho flicks through the prospectus, looking at the pictures. Unease stirs just slightly around his spine, but he puts the prospectus back where he found it and decides to ask Changmin about it later.

He wanders out into the kitchen. Kyuhyun is apparently still asleep, and Minho is seated at the table finishing his breakfast whilst reading a battered copy of _The Hound of the Baskervilles_. He jumps up when Yunho comes in. “Morning, bro. Coffee? Just made some. Drip, not instant.”

“Thanks.” Yunho leans against the units, feeling a bit bad that Minho is fetching a mug and a spoon and milk and sugar. He knows where these things live, but it might seem too presumptuous to help himself. Especially as this is only the second time he’s been here.

Stuck for conversation, Yunho’s gaze lights on the sink. Oh yeah, he fixed the tap last time. “The tap has been okay?”

“It’s been great. Thank you.” Minho pours the coffee, the fragrance dark and strong. He nudges the mug towards Yunho. “Kyu started a list of other things you could fix when you came again, but Changmin threatened to throw him out of the window when he put stuff on like ‘fifth upright from the left on third floor banister needs straightening’. I have to agree with Changmin on that one. Kyu can get a bit obsessed.”

“I guess that’s a plus for a macroeconomist.”

Minho laughs. “You’re funny.”

Yunho wasn’t trying to be funny, but never mind. He stirs heaped teaspoons of sugar into his coffee. “Is there anywhere on campus that I can get breakfast?”

“Sure, but you can have something here if you want.” Minho opens a cupboard and gestures at the chaos inside. “Changmin bought this cereal two days ago. Said it was your favourite so we couldn’t touch it, though I think Kyu had some already. Go for it.”

Amused, Yunho takes down a bowl and shakes out a heap of cereal. He adds milk and sits at the table to eat. Minho resumes his seat opposite, curving his hands around his own coffee cup. They make small talk about the weather, about Minho’s dissertation, and the role of the grotesque as agents of liminal subversion in popular culture. Or at least that’s what Minho says, when in actual fact they’re talking about monsters in horror films. Yunho is glad that Donghae has such crap taste in DVDs, otherwise he’d be completely lost in this discussion.

There’s only so many times one can reference _The Ring_ , and the conversation starts to flag again. Minho fiddles with the handle of his coffee cup. He seems awkward all of a sudden, and then he says, “Bro, me and Kyu, we think you’re a good guy.”

Yunho raises an eyebrow, sensing a rider. “But?”

Minho looks surprised. “No ‘but’. Just a statement.”

“Okay.” That’s unexpected. Yunho is slightly confused. “Thanks.”

Wrinkling his nose, Minho makes a face. “It’s like this. We’ve been friends with Changmin for a while now and... He’s really happy. Because you’re dating him. So we approve.” He pauses. He has the look of a man struggling to articulate himself, which must be a real bummer for an English Literature student. “This sounds weird, right?”

“Kind of.” Yunho gives the poor guy a break. “But I appreciate the sentiment. I’m glad Changmin has friends like you.” It sounds quite sinister said like that, and Yunho hopes Minho doesn’t notice and think he’s being liminally subversive or whatever.

“He hates it when we talk about him.” Minho glances over his shoulder towards the door of the apartment as if he’s expecting Changmin to barge through in a temper. “Says we remind him of his parents, and that’s bad news.”

Yunho frowns. “I thought his parents were okay with him.”

Minho flicks him a startled look. “He told you that? But—” He stops.

“What?”

There’s a hush, broken only by the shrilling of an alarm clock, followed by a loud thud from Kyuhyun’s room. The alarm cuts off into silence. Yunho resumes eating his breakfast while Minho wavers over their conversation. At length he exhales. 

“His parents don’t care about him,” Minho says in a rush. “Not just about him being gay. They don’t care, full stop. Don’t get me wrong, they’re nice enough, but... you know how some people shouldn’t have kids?”

Yunho puts down his spoon. “For real.”

“Changmin’s mum has this whole MILF thing going on.” Minho’s blushing now, face burning as he buries his nose in his coffee cup. “She had Changmin when she was really young and it’s like it was all, oh, here’s a baby, what shall we do with it, and...” He stops again, looking uncomfortable. Puts down his cup. “They’re just... distant.”

None of this matches the little that Changmin had told Yunho about his family, but Minho has no reason to lie about it. Yunho takes a mouthful of hot, sweet coffee to wash away the taste of his uncertainty. “He said they were supportive.”

“They give him some money now and then.” Minho shrugs. “Me and Kyu have been to his house a few times. It’s like a museum. You don’t want to touch anything in case you leave a mark.” He grimaces, wiggles his hand. “I’m making them sound like freaks. They’re not. But they talked to us like we’d met at some fancy cocktail party. They talk to Changmin like that, too. They don’t know who he is and I don’t think they really care.”

This account is so far away from what Yunho had been imagining that he’s not sure what to say.

Minho finishes his coffee and gets up. “Anyway. You seem to care about him, and that’s cool. He’s worth the effort.”

Yunho manages a smile. “It’s not a hardship to get to know him.”

“Yeah, but sometimes he can be a pain in the ass about it.” The taps run in the sink and Minho rinses out his cup and plate. He leaves them in the bowl, dries his hands on his trousers, then grabs his bag and swings it over his shoulder. “Just... we’re glad you’re with him. He’s kinda getting back to his old self these days.”

“Old self?”

A self-conscious grin spreads over Minho’s face. “Yeah. I mean, none of us are really rock and roll or anything, you can tell that, right? But Changmin was super-shy when he first got here, and then he came out of his shell and he had the best ideas for doing all these crazy things that were, er, not as crazy as stripping a tank whilst under the influence, but...” He shrugs again and checks his watch. “And then he met that guy and it all went to hell.”

Yunho goes still. “His ex?”

“Yeah.” Minho’s cheerful expression darkens. “He didn’t stand a chance. And when that bastard had taken everything, he dumped him.” He looks at Yunho. “It destroyed Changmin. It absolutely fucking destroyed him.”


	9. Chapter 9

Yunho doesn’t get the chance to see Changmin again for a while. They’re both too busy, Yunho with a trip to Busan and Changmin hard at work on his dissertation. They still talk every day. Yunho finally buys a new phone, an upgraded version of the one that Changmin has, all flash and expensive with loads of apps that do useless things that Yunho’s not interested in. He doesn’t really like it, but the advantage the new phone has over his old one is that it enables video calls, and now he can see Changmin while they talk.

It also means that phone sex is suddenly a lot easier. Or at least it is once he coaxes Changmin past an attack of shy embarrassment. Wanking is always much better with visuals, and his favourite visual is Changmin sprawled on the bed, hair in his face and his eyes dazed with need and his lips parted, chest heaving and skin sheened with sweat as he works a dildo in and out of his greedy hole while Yunho tells him exactly how much to take and how fast to do it.

One time, Changmin is evil and instead of performing for his appreciative audience, he turns the camera away and Yunho is forced to look at the smug face of the straw pig while he listens to Changmin get off, noisily and with abandon. 

Two can play at that game, and after some experimentation with angles and timing, Yunho takes a video of himself all greased up and sweaty, jacking off across the bonnet of his BMW. He sends it to Changmin and, when he doesn’t hear anything back for more than half the day, starts to worry that he sent it to his accountant or his mum or to someone equally as embarrassing.

And then at last he gets a text from Changmin: _I’ve jerked off so many times to your video that I’m sore and I literally can’t come any more. You’ve drained me._

Result.

It’s towards the second half of October when they see one another again. Yunho invites him down to Gwangju for the weekend and takes Friday off work to prepare. 

Donghae makes a complete fucking nuisance of himself by hanging around the little apartment, commenting on Yunho’s cleaning abilities and how he must be really keen because he’s never bothered to trap that alien dustball living under his bed before. Yunho threatens to emasculate him with a torque wrench, but Donghae just cracks open a beer before offering more unwanted advice on what he should clean next.

“Maybe you should clean yourself,” Donghae says. “You’re the dirtiest thing here. Oh wait, that’s why this guy likes you. Maybe you should go and roll in the gutter, make yourself really filthy.”

“Fuck you.” Yunho flings a dishcloth at him. “If you’re going to insult me, you may as well wash up while you do it.” 

To his surprise, Donghae stays and does the dishes.

Yunho takes a shower then spends some time deciding what to wear. In the end he chooses black jeans, a soft, grey scoop-necked t-shirt and a black casual jacket with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow.

When he goes back into the kitchen/diner, Donghae has just finished drying up. He looks at Yunho and raises his eyebrows. “Thought you’d already slept with him. What’s with the try-hard?”

Self-conscious, Yunho runs a hand through his wet hair. “It’s different now. I want this to be a special weekend for him.”

“Going to ask him to marry you?”

Yunho blushes. “Don’t be a twat.”

Donghae narrows his gaze, suspicion bright in his eyes. “Don’t do something stupid, will you? I mean, go out and get matching tattoos if you want, but... don’t do something you’ll regret.”

“Thanks for the concern. You can fuck off now.”

“Dude.” Donghae spreads his hands in a conciliatory gesture and smiles, bright and charming. “So when am I going to meet him? It’s not serious until I’ve met him, you know that.”

“Tomorrow,” Yunho says. “Tomorrow night. Let’s go out for dinner. Invite Jess. We’ll double-date.”

Donghae considers it. He nods. “Okay. Because if anything is guaranteed to get her into bed, it’ll be going out with a couple of gay boys.”

*

He’s bad at waiting. After Donghae has buggered off and he’s finished with his preparations, Yunho sits and plays Angry Birds on his new phone for ten minutes before impatience drives him out into the garage to work on tuning the engine of a Daewoo Matiz. He leaves the CD player off and opens the doors partway so he can listen for the sound of Changmin’s car. Soon he’s elbow-deep in the Daewoo’s innards, his arms and his nice t-shirt striped with oil, and his casual tinkering to pass the time has turned into proper care and concentration on the job.

He’s so focused he doesn’t even realise he has company until Changmin leans across the engine, lays a hand on the radiator, and asks, “Is this the carburettor?”

Yunho laughs. He wants to grab Changmin and kiss him senseless, but he’s covered in grease and he doesn’t want to dirty Changmin’s dark blue jeans and white v-necked t-shirt and tailored blue suit jacket. Instead he finishes what he’s doing then goes to clean up. He asks about Changmin’s journey and how the car handled, and Changmin tells him everything’s fine, everything’s good, and can he stop the shop talk now, please?

“Sure,” Yunho says, locking up and turning off the lights in the garage. He holds open the door to his flat. “Come in.”

Changmin can’t hide his surprise when he crosses the threshold. Last time he was here, the little apartment was overflowing with clutter, random car parts stashed amongst piles of auto magazines, a wizened cactus listing to one side—the only plant Yunho had successfully managed to keep alive for more than a week—and the contents of most of his wardrobe strewn around like a bomb had gone off. 

Now, after a day’s dedicated cleaning, the space is neat and tidy. Yunho had dragged the table out of the kitchen area and dressed it up with a cloth and candles and fancy glasses, and there’s a bottle of red wine open and breathing. Yunho had asked the guy in the shop for advice and ended up with something expensive, but at least it doesn’t smell like old socks and rotting wood. Maybe it’s even a vintage that would win Kyuhyun’s approval.

“This is nice,” Changmin says, putting his weekend bag on the floor. He slides off his jacket, drapes it over the back of the couch, then fits himself into Yunho’s arms, tilting his head for a kiss.

Yunho puts an arm around his waist, strokes up his back with his free hand, and kisses Changmin thoroughly and completely until they’re both hard and Changmin is making those _God yes, fuck me now_ noises.

With difficulty, Yunho pulls away. “Sit down,” he says. “Make yourself at home. I need to finish doing the dinner.”

Changmin’s eyes are slumberous, his mouth soft and bruised from their kisses, but he still remembers his manners. “Can I help?”

“I can manage, thanks.” Yunho backs away before he starts kissing Changmin again, because if that happens they’ll never get round to eating dinner and all his careful planning will have gone to waste. “You sort out the wine. I’ll be right back.”

He retreats to the kitchen and checks on the food, serves it up as nicely as he can, and carries the plates out to the living room. Changmin has poured the wine and is sitting at the table, his eyes shining in the candlelight. He’s smiling and looks relaxed and confident and utterly beautiful.

“It smells amazing,” he says as Yunho sets down the plates.

“It’s just bulgogi.” Yunho takes a seat opposite. “I hope you like it.”

They eat in silence for a while. Yunho barely tastes the first few mouthfuls, his stomach twisted up with desire and nervousness and delight. Changmin keeps on smiling at him, gaze all soft and affectionate, and Yunho wants to throw everything off the table and fuck him across it. He tamps down on his baser instincts and pretends to be civilised, sipping at his wine and picking at the sweet black beans on one side of the plate.

Changmin practically inhales the bulgogi and accepts a second helping. “It’s so _good_ ,” he moans in the same tone he uses to praise the sensation of Yunho’s cock working deep inside him.

Yunho wishes he wasn’t so easily distracted. Changmin’s coquetry is lethal. He takes another gulp of wine, feeling it go to his head. “I have to admit, my mum made the bulgogi. And the kimchi. And the beans,” he says. “I made the salad myself, though.”

Changmin laughs. “The salad is actually my favourite part.” He catches up a slice of pepper that looks like a five-year-old cut it up with a pair of blunt plastic scissors. “I especially like the presentation.”

“It’s the thought that counts.”

“It’s the _taste_ that counts.” Changmin smiles at him. “And it’s delicious.”

“I’ll tell my mum. She’ll be pleased.”

Changmin takes a sip of his wine. “You’ve never really talked about your parents before,” he says, big dark eyes fixed on Yunho.

“Nothing much to say.” Or rather, there is, but he doesn’t want to bore Changmin with it. He doesn’t even like boring himself with it. Yunho stirs his chopsticks through the kimchi then eats a strip of beef.

When Changmin doesn’t say anything, just cradles the wine glass and gazes at him, Yunho realises he’s expected to say something. He pokes at the salad and his inexpertly cut peppers and says, “My parents split up ages ago. I was eleven. They thought I was old enough, so they gave me the choice of staying with either my mum or my dad. I chose my dad. I didn’t see Mum for a while after that. She remarried, lived on the other side of the city.”

“You must have missed her,” Changmin says quietly.

“Not really.” It’s kind of a lie and kind of not at the same time. Yunho doesn’t often think about those days. He can’t change what happened so there’s no point in regretting it. “It was just me and my dad, and that was all right. We went hiking and he liked the fact that I was into cars. Said it was a proper manly interest. I thought we were cool, better than some of the father-son relationships I saw amongst my friends at school. He had a temper, though, but again, that wasn’t anything unusual.”

He’s picked the plate clean of black beans. Yunho puts down his chopsticks and looks at Changmin. “I thought my dad would be all right with me being gay. Deep down I knew he would freak out, but on the surface we had such a good relationship that I thought—I hoped...” He pauses. Shrugs. “So I told him, and he threw me out. This was two months before I turned sixteen.”

Changmin is staring at him with disbelief and sympathy and more than that—with empathy. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah.” Yunho waves it away. “I slept rough for a bit. Had a bin bag with clothes and books in it that I hid on the school grounds. Used to doss down in the boiler room for a while until the caretaker found me and told the headmaster. He called my mum. I didn’t think she’d want anything to do with me either, but she did.” Another shrug. “Mum fussed over me at first. She still does. A lot of the time I think it’s from guilt, like she’s trying to make up for the past, but I can’t blame her for any of it. Anyway. My stepfather is a good guy. I get on with him.”

“And your father?” Changmin asks.

A knot tightens in Yunho’s gut. He picks up his chopsticks and stabs at the bulgogi. “I’ve never seen him again.”

“Yun...” Changmin reaches across the table and takes the chopsticks from him, lays them down and puts his hand over Yunho’s hand. He looks like he wants to say something, but in the end he remains silent, and that’s the absolute best comment he could make on the subject.

“Anyway,” Yunho says again, withdrawing his hand from Changmin’s gentle grip, “Mum’s a good cook, and I shamelessly exploit her talent every time I have dinner guests. Which isn’t all that often, actually, so she really will be pleased that you liked this.”

“Tell her I loved it.” Changmin tucks his hand beneath his chin and leans his elbow on the table. “Tell her, too, that her son may not be as gifted in the kitchen, but he has plenty of talent elsewhere.”

Yunho snorts. “I know exactly what talent you have in mind.”

“I doubt it.” Changmin smiles, his face flushed with the effects of the wine. “For once I wasn’t talking about your gorgeous huge cock.”

That throws Yunho more than a little. Time for another distraction. He gets to his feet. “You want dessert? It’s just strawberries. A bit boring, maybe, but I like strawberries.”

“Strawberries sound great.”

Maybe he should have done something clever with the fruit like slice them into a bowl and cover them with sugar or at least melt some chocolate over them, but instead Yunho brings out the punnet and sets it between them on the table. Changmin takes the first strawberry, dips it into what’s left of his wine, then holds it out. Yunho leans over and licks the wine from it before biting into the fruit.

Changmin laughs, his hair falling into his eyes.

They make their way slowly through the rest of the strawberries, feeding each other. It’s sweet and sexy and deserves fruit that tastes better than out of season supermarket imports, but that doesn’t really matter. 

They talk, and Changmin asks interested questions about the garage and Yunho’s modest plans for expanding the business. Yunho ends up telling him about Donghae’s brother in Mokpo, who’s also a mechanic, and how he’d got shafted on a loan and so Yunho had bailed him out and bought a majority share in the Mokpo garage, thereby earning the Lee brothers’ gratitude forever, although Donghae likes to show it in an unconventional way. Then he told Changmin about the garage that he’d bought last year in Busan, which is run by one of his army mates.

“You could have a chain of garages all through the south,” Changmin suggests with a smile.

Yunho laughs. “Nah. I’d like to have one more on the other side of town, but no more than that. I like what I do and I don’t want to stop enjoying it just for the sake of pretending to be some kind of chief exec.”

Changmin is quiet for a moment, obviously thinking about this. When Yunho has had this sort of conversation before with his previous lovers, they’ve always said that he should have more ambition, that he should stop getting his hands dirty mending cars and clean up and become a proper businessman. He braces himself for a similar remark now, but Changmin doesn’t say it. Instead he says, “I admire you for that. It’s like you can have the best of both worlds. You’ve found a sense of balance that works for you.”

“I think I’m finding that everywhere in my life,” Yunho says softly, looking at him. “It’s a good feeling.”

Changmin blushes and drops his gaze, but he looks pleased.

A tiny silence falls between them. Changmin moves his hand, fiddles with the empty punnet. His fingertips are stained red with strawberry juice from where he’d dug out the green stems and leaves. “Maybe,” he begins, then hesitates. He toys with the punnet again. Looks up and smiles. “Maybe we should wash the dishes.”

Two lots of washing up in one day seems excessive, even if Donghae did it last time. Yunho picks up the punnet and gets to his feet. “It’s okay. They’ll keep. Go and sit down while I tidy away.”

“My legs aren’t painted on,” Changmin protests, but he goes over to the couch anyway and curls up. Yunho blows out the candles with too much enthusiasm and hopes that the resulting splatter of wax will come out of his borrowed tablecloth. He manages to clear the rest of the table without causing any further disasters, puts the scant leftovers into containers and piles them in the fridge, then goes back into the living room to find Changmin all happy and drowsy.

“Even though I must have a hundred pictures of you, it’s always different when I see you,” Yunho says, settling onto the sofa and drawing Changmin closer. “It’s like I think I know every line and curve of your face, but then I see you and I find something new to admire.”

Changmin smiles. “It’s just the light.”

“No. It’s you.”

There’s one of those awkward moments where Yunho thinks he’s just said something terribly profound, and Changmin’s eyes widen as if he really _has_ said something terribly profound, and then Yunho flails a bit because he doesn’t know what Changmin thinks he meant by what he said, and it suddenly becomes very confusing and yet not at the same time.

The best way to overcome any kind of confusion is to provide distraction. Yunho’s favourite method is kissing. He leans in, but Changmin is there before him, so obviously Changmin was feeling just as confused. Not that it matters now.

Changmin tastes of the sweetness of strawberries and the richer, darker scent of wine. His mouth is hot and wet. His hair tickles Yunho’s face, all soft, and then Changmin lifts his hands, puts one on Yunho’s shoulder and the other against his neck, fingers curling around to his nape.

They stay like that for a moment, still kissing, then Changmin climbs onto Yunho’s lap and kneels astride. Yunho tips his head back and relaxes against the couch, giving up control of the kiss to Changmin. He likes it when Changmin takes the lead. It’s sexy, a sign of just how much he’s grown in confidence over the last few months. Content to be kissed, Yunho curves both hands around Changmin’s ass and holds on tight.

The kiss picks up speed. Changmin is breathing fast, his heart pounding. Yunho can feel Changmin’s tension through the tightening of the muscles in his ass and up his back. Changmin moves his hand from Yunho’s shoulder to the dip of the grey t-shirt. He touches Yunho’s chest, then pulls his hand down to lift the t-shirt at the hem and burrows his caress beneath it. 

Yunho soft-bites at Changmin’s upper lip and pulls him closer. They’re both hard, rubbing and grinding against each other. A few more kisses, deeper, wetter, and then Yunho puts one hand on Changmin’s hip, slides the other one up his back, and gently tilts him sideways onto the couch.

Changmin unbalances, goes sprawling. He blinks in confusion. “Yun?”

“Just one moment.” Yunho forces himself to get to his feet. He goes into the bedroom and leans against the door, exhaling to push back the jitter of nerves that suddenly spirals up at him. The room is clean and tidy. The bed is freshly made up with satin sheets. Yunho goes around the small space and lights the dozens of tea lights in tiny glass jars he’d bought especially for tonight.

Oh God, he hopes it looks nice. He hopes it’s not too much. He wants this to be perfect.

Before he can change his mind, Yunho opens the door. “Changminnie,” he says, “come here.”

Changmin finishes the last few sips of wine, then gets up from the sofa. He keeps his gaze fixed on Yunho, smiling, but when he rounds the door and sees the bedroom, his eyes go wide and he makes a tiny, soft noise.

“I couldn’t get silk sheets,” Yunho says. “So I bought satin. It’s supposed to be aubergine. The colour is prettier in the daylight. I went through all the colours in the shop and imagined how you’d look lying naked against them, and this was my favourite.”

The expression on Changmin’s face is caught between disbelief and delight. His emotions simmer at the surface, easily read in his eyes when he looks up. “You did all this for me?”

Yunho feels like he’s falling, faster and faster, no brakes. He tries to sound casual. “Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to maintain.”

“And I have the best boyfriend.” Changmin kisses him. “Thank you, thank you.” He puts his arms around Yunho and holds on. A quiver slides through him, and Yunho knows he’s done the right thing.

“Come and feel,” he says, disengaging slightly from the embrace but keeping one arm around Changmin’s waist. “Satin kind of feels like soap.”

“It’s nice, though.” Changmin sits on the side of the bed, catches at Yunho and draws him nearer. “The candles are pretty. They smell sweet.”

“Jasmine,” Yunho says. He’d gone around sniffing every damn scented candle in the shop until he couldn’t distinguish one fragrance from the other, and in the end the jasmine seemed to be the best option.

“It’s lovely,” Changmin murmurs, and kisses him again. 

Even though Changmin’s reaction was everything Yunho wanted it to be, a residual anxiety still remains. Changmin must sense it, misunderstands and takes it as hunger instead, because he draws back and pulls off his t-shirt, starts unbuttoning his jeans. “I know,” he says, “it’s been three weeks. You must really want it, and I’m here babbling about candles.”

“No, no,” Yunho says, then forgets to explain himself as Changmin gets naked and lies back on the bed. Yeah, he made the right decision with the satin sheets. Aubergine sounds like a stupid colour but by God, Changmin looks incredibly beautiful against it.

Changmin smiles up at him. “Now you come here.”

Yunho strips out of his clothes in record time and clambers onto the bed, inching closer to Changmin until they touch and melt into one another, hard and pliant at the same time. Yunho coaxes more kisses from that gorgeous mouth, and then when Changmin is looking dazed and ready for anything, Yunho says, “I want you to fuck me.”

Changmin looks at him, startled. “I’ve never— Um, I haven’t...”

 _Yes!_ Yunho can’t stop his grin. He’d wondered, ever since Changmin had told him about his perfect first time, if this mysterious ex-boyfriend had ever let Changmin top him. Clearly he hadn’t, and that dickhead’s loss is going to be Yunho’s gain. He nuzzles at Changmin’s throat, whispers, “It’s like you’re a virgin all over again.”

“Oh God.” Changmin looks ridiculously turned on by that thought. He pushes at Yunho, gets him flat on the bed and crawls over him, then just hangs there as if he doesn’t know what to do. No—as if he doesn’t know what to do _first_.

Changmin starts out slow, offering more kisses. Yunho wonders if he’s pushed too hard, asked too much, but then he realises Changmin is trying to go slow because he’s almost too eager. His cock is hard and thick and drooling, and he humps against Yunho like a man possessed, only to draw back about ten seconds later, concentration bright and intense on his face.

“Do you want me to get you off a couple of times first?” Yunho asks.

Another startled look. “No.” Changmin’s body stutters against Yunho’s, and they both groan at the contact. “I want to say yes. It makes more sense to say yes. But I also want to be inside you. I want to prove—”

Yunho strokes the side of his face. “Baby, you have absolutely nothing to prove.”

Changmin laughs, then muffles the sound against Yunho’s neck. Then he licks Yunho’s throat, makes him squirm a little and dip his head, and Changmin makes a sound and takes him by the shoulders, holds him still, and licks and licks up the side of Yunho’s neck to his ear. 

“How do you like it?” Changmin asks, and his mouth is at just the right spot to send his voice in a low, sexy roll all the way through Yunho’s body. It’s like an echo, raising goosebumps, making him curl his toes. It makes him feel as if his back is folding in on itself, stripes of sensation tickling over his skin. Fuck, this is just Changmin’s _voice_.

He remembers there was a question in there somewhere, but Yunho can’t summon the words to reply. His hands have gone all tight, curved over Changmin’s shoulders. He wants to touch, he _loves_ touching Changmin’s beautiful pale skin, but he’s frozen, caught between fantasy and reality and not knowing which way to go.

“Yun,” Changmin says, raising his head. His voice is still husky and warm, but now he’s moved it no longer has the power it did when his mouth was so close to Yunho’s ear. “Yunho, how do you—”

“Just touch me,” Yunho gasps out. “Anything you want.”

“Oh,” Changmin says. He smiles, brilliant and breathtaking. “Oh.”

Yunho has been offering Changmin carte blanche for weeks now. He has so much to give, so very much. He’s accustomed to lovers taking it all and glutting themselves, but Changmin has never done that. Changmin takes just a little at a time, but now Yunho desperately wants him to take everything in one big glorious, greedy rush.

Changmin’s kisses are soft, measured. Not uncertain, but testing, as if he wants to gauge every last one of Yunho’s reactions. It’s careful, academic, and so very _Changmin_ , as if he’s trying to work out the perfect formula for making love. At the same time, the forced slow burn of it is driving Yunho crazy. 

In bed he’s usually joyous and enthusiastic and gets caught up in the heat of the moment; over time, it’s made him not so much hasty as forgetful of the pleasures to be found when controlled by a patient, meticulous lover. Yunho surrenders to it now, this deep, melting sensation that seems to drain him of energy yet leave him sparking at each new touch. 

He combs his fingers through Changmin’s hair, inhales the gorgeous heady warmth of him, achingly aware of the hard, heavy length of Changmin’s cock rubbing over his belly. More of those slow, drugging kisses, and then Yunho spreads his legs and curls them back so Changmin is between his thighs, and he pushes up and up, the invitation blatant and unmistakeable.

Smiling against his mouth, Changmin laughs and then pulls away to look at him. “Okay. Okay. Condoms, where are they?”

“Not tonight,” Yunho says, watching his face. “Just you and me.”

Changmin freezes, desire replaced by astonishment. “Truly?”

“I’m clean. I’m kind of hoping you are, too.”

“I—yes, I am.” Changmin pauses, his skin flushed. “I didn’t expect...”

“No pressure,” Yunho says.

A shaky laugh falls from Changmin. “No pressure? After all this—dinner and wine and candles and satin sheets and not only are you letting me fuck you, but you want it like that? That’s no pressure at all.”

“Hey, I didn’t mean to freak you out.” Yunho puts a hand on Changmin’s back, feels him shiver. “I wanted it to be special.”

A wobbly smile. “You don’t need to try so hard. I’m already impressed.”

“It’s not that.” Yunho tries to cut through the knot of his emotions. “You’re special. You deserve to be cherished.”

Changmin looks stunned.

Not the reaction he was hoping for. Yunho gives a self-conscious laugh. “Okay, _now_ I’ve freaked you out.”

“No.” The word emerges soft and breathless, and then Changmin says, “Not at all. No one’s ever... I’ve never...”

“Been cherished?” Yunho smiles up at him. “Let me be the first, then.”

Changmin makes a strangled sound. “Oh God, I—” He stops himself, leans down and kisses Yunho. It’s fast, urgent, and then he pulls back, eyes glittering. “I’m going to make love to you.”

Yunho can’t remember the last time anyone said they were going to make love to him.

Simple touches, first. Changmin glides his hands over Yunho’s body, throat to collarbones to chest, twisting and pinching at his nipples until Yunho jolts up and his breath hisses between his teeth. Not because it hurts, oh no, but because it’s so good, because he can _feel_ , and the sharp sting writhes around and gets inside his lust and kicks everything up to a higher gear.

Now Changmin slides his hands further down, over Yunho’s belly and narrow hips. He strokes the length of Yunho’s rock-hard dick, gathers the wetness from the tip and rubs it around and around the crown, thumbs at the underside, smooth then rougher, harder, and Yunho bucks into his hand, moans in a really loud and obvious way.

Changmin’s breathing is fractured. He traces shapes over Yunho’s thighs, slides his hand up between his legs, touches behind his balls. It’s too gentle; Yunho grabs at Changmin’s hand, holds his wrist and forces him to do it harder. 

“Won’t break,” Yunho says, trying to sound funny and reassuring, but it comes out hoarse and needy.

Pausing to lick his fingers, Changmin explores some more. Yunho urges him on, lifting his hips higher. It’s a little strange to have fingers in his ass rather than the smooth solidity of one of the toys he occasionally plays with, but none of his toys look like Changmin and it’s this rather than the sensation that makes Yunho grip onto him.

Changmin kneels up, panting. His beautiful mouth is hanging open, lips bitten and bruised, and he curls out his tongue, licks his lower lip, and he looks wanton and hungry. He grabs the lube from the bedside table, hands unsteady as the gel globs out. His control is so rigid, it’s going to have to shatter soon. He makes his cock all slippery then spreads himself over Yunho, fits them together with ease. He’s shaking with need but still so careful, his breaths heightening and circling as he positions Yunho, readies himself. He wields his focus like a laser, bright and fierce, and then he’s sliding inside. Yunho quivers around him, opening up, and he makes a noise somewhere between a gasp and a grunt. 

Changmin closes his eyes and pushes and pushes, his head going back and his breaths faster and faster. “Fuck.” He’s shuddering with the effort to hold himself still. “Oh, you’re tight. God. Oh God.”

“It’s been a while.” Yunho arches up at him.

Changmin grits his teeth at the movement. “How long?”

“Years. Don’t remember exactly. Don’t want to remember, not with you inside me now.”

“Don’t say anything.” Changmin puts a hand over Yunho’s mouth. He’s fighting the urge to come, his hips starting to stir. “If you say anything dirty, this is going to be over before it’s begun.”

Yunho opens his mouth wide beneath Changmin’s palm, forces out his tongue to lick at hot salt-softness, biting at the flesh.

“Bad. You’re bad.” Changmin pulls away, looking wild. He plants both hands on the mattress and lifts up, weight balanced through his arms and anchored where they’re joined. It sends a jolt of dark, grasping sensation right through Yunho. 

“Move,” Yunho says, shifting against him, flexing. “Move, Changminnie.”

“Wait.” Changmin’s breaths are harsh and clipped, sweat dewing his face, his eyelashes tangling with the fall of his fringe. Tension sings through his body, a pressure that needs to release, thunderheads waiting for the first strike of lightning. “Wait,” he says again, and Yunho realises Changmin isn’t talking to him—he’s talking to himself.

Changmin tilts his hips, shudders again. “Now,” he growls, and pulls out halfway, thrusts back in, a long, heavenly slide back and forth.

Yunho moans and ruts up against him. It’s unbearable, that fractional moment when Changmin’s sweat-dampened body peels back from his, and Yunho grabs at him, wanting to keep Changmin pressed tight and hard on top of him. Changmin seems to understand, fucks deeper into him, does it rougher. Pleasure arcs and dances, cuts through the heat-drenched air between them. Yunho breaks first, but only because he wants to see Changmin break even more. He writhes around on the satin sheets—the fabric sticking to him in a way that cotton never does—and makes garbled, frantic noises and digs his fingers hard into Changmin’s milky skin, knowing he’s going to leave marks.

The pace lifts, becomes frenetic. Changmin drops down onto his elbows, shoulders quivering with the strain he’s putting himself under. His teeth are clenched, his jaw tight. Yunho rocks up and kisses him, wanting that mouth soft and sensual. Changmin changes position again, takes hold of Yunho’s hips and controls him, ramming in deeper, barely drawing out before he strokes back in, harder, harder.

“Changmin. Yes. Oh.” Yunho’s orgasm snaps at him, jerks at him like he’s running and running and been pulled up short at the end of a leash. It’s like a shock, pure electricity, and he shouts, “Oh _God_ , Changminnie—”

He’s come just from the sensory overload. He didn’t even need his hand to help things along. And fuck, it’s been a while since _that’s_ happened. Yunho laughs, exuberance spilling through him.

Changmin looks startled by it, but then he laughs too, sheer delight on his face, and he’s shaking and laughing and coming, everything rolling together into one delicious ending, and he fills Yunho up over and over, hot and wet and possessive.

Into the long, trembling silence afterwards, Yunho holds Changmin and whispers, “Perfect. You’re perfect.”


	10. Chapter 10

They wake early on Saturday morning. Yunho feels a bit bad when Changmin surfaces from sleep looking rumpled but eager, obviously thinking they’re going to spend the next few hours working up an appetite. Changmin’s face when Yunho announces that they’re going hiking has the kind of look that causes small animals to keel over and expire on the spot. But Yunho is made of sterner stuff, and he coaxes Changmin out of bed with blatant lies about the breakfast he’ll make when they get back. By the time Changmin is dressed, Yunho is a little frightened about the amount of food he’s promised to produce and also the degree of skill required in creating such a Michelin-starred repast.

Changmin gets into the BMW, fretting about whether his shoes are appropriate footwear for hiking. “I’ve seen women walk up in high heels,” Yunho tells him, and Changmin falls silent for a while until they’re out of the city and heading for the sprawling mass of Mudeungsan. 

“We’re only walking up to that bit, right?” Changmin points at a communications tower on one of the lowest of the bulging foothills.

“We’re going to Gyubongam Temple. It’s set amongst these really amazing rock pillars and because it’s so high up, the view is just incredible.” Yunho glances at Changmin and watches him turn pale.

“Obviously I didn’t fuck you hard enough last night,” Changmin says after a moment, tossing his head to flick the hair from his eyes. “If only you’d told me we were going rock-climbing, I’d have tied you to the bed.”

“The trail is very easy,” Yunho says, attempting to reassure him.

Changmin gives him a disbelieving look. “It’s _uphill_.” 

Yunho parks on the street at Wonhyosa and leads the way. He’s walked this mountain so many times he’s stopped noticing the gradient, but now he’s with Changmin, he feels it. The first part of the trail is quite steep, bare rock emerging from packed earth and tree roots as they pass through the forest. Last year’s pine needles blanket the ground, and the air smells of soil and damp wood and the sharp-fresh scent of pine. Usually he’d bound ahead to the open track, but this time he keeps his pace slow and steady.

It doesn’t take long before Changmin strides past him, nose in the air. “Some people are so _slow_.”

“Some people have a sore ass.”

Changmin snorts. “Some people asked for it.” 

Yunho runs at him. Changmin flees up the track, laughing. The sound carries through the forest, and Yunho thinks it’s just about the most perfect thing he’s ever heard.

After a while the forest thins out, pine replaced by smaller, scrubbier trees. The leaves are turning, and though some are still green, whole swathes of the mountainside are ablaze with flutters of yellow and orange and red, a striking contrast to the grey of the rocks and the high, pale blue of the sky. 

The path twists around the contours of the mountain, and then they’re out of the cover of the trees and amongst a nodding sweep of tall, rustling grass. Yunho strikes out ahead, bouncing from rock to rock as the trail cuts through a patch of boggy ground. Up here the air is colder, the breeze a premonition of winter. The sun is still rising in front of them, and fluffed cirrus clouds rake the sky. Below them, the foothills stretch away, blue and grey like the washes on Chinese landscape paintings. Mist lingers along the tops of the valleys.

Yunho takes a deep breath and drinks in the view, familiar yet brand new because Changmin is with him. He turns to see Changmin labouring after him, worn out from their earlier playful chase. Yunho grins. “You’re so unfit.”

“I have stamina where it counts.” Changmin bows forward, hands on his knees as he tries to recover. His hair hangs in his eyes. “There are no mountains in Seoul.”

“Staircases. You have those.”

Changmin looks up. “And lifts. We also have lifts. Do you not have such modern inventions in the south?”

Yunho shakes his head, makes his eyes wide and innocent. “I’d never seen one for real until I visited you.”

“Idiot.” Changmin’s shoulders quiver, and then he straightens up, breathing hard, and takes in the view. A softness comes into his expression as he gazes at the blue hills undulating and merging with the horizon. “Wow, look at that. It’s lovely.”

“You can see the lake and the city from a bit further around,” Yunho says. “Everyone in Gwangju is supposed to come up here once a year. I aim for once a month.”

“Looking for peace and quiet?”

The idea is an entertaining one. Yunho laughs. “Usually this place is swarming. There’s bottlenecks all up and down the trails. People come with their friends and bring picnics. It’s fun.”

Changmin shades his eyes with his hand and turns slowly to admire the view. “Do you and Donghae come up here?”

“Yep, sometimes. He’s a once a year hiker, though, so mostly I come on my own. It’s always nicer first thing in the morning.” 

The breeze plucks at the whispering grass, bringing with it the scent of freedom. Changmin’s skin is still flushed from exertion, a sheen of sweat on his upper lip. Neither of them shaved this morning, and Changmin’s stubble is the same faint blue-grey as the distant hills. With the sharply angled sunlight on his face, he looks spectacular.

Desire overwhelms Yunho, not just lust but also the urge to protect and cherish and adore. He’s never felt like this before. Generally when he encounters something new and potentially amazing, he runs at it and embraces it with all the exuberance he possesses. This time, though... This time he has to be careful, because Changmin is still wary and skittish and Yunho knew he’d almost been in danger of coming on too strong last night.

But still. But still. How can he not go all out for this when it feels so good, when he’s so utterly certain that it’s _right_?

Pushing away the muddle of his thoughts, Yunho moves closer. “Also, Changminnie, the fact that there’s fewer people around means I can do something I’ve wanted to do since I met you.”

Smiling, Changmin looks at him. “Oh?”

Yunho kisses him. Soft and chaste for this first time, only a little heat in it, and he dedicates the kiss to the god of the mountain in thanks.

When he pulls away, Changmin says, “You wanted to kiss me on a mountain?”

Yunho takes his hands, pulls Changmin closer as the breeze curls around them and the sun’s warmth starts to break through the chill of the morning. “Kissing on mountains is romantic.”

Changmin raises an eyebrow. “I think you need to try harder to convince me.”

They kiss again. Yunho opens his mouth to it, does it slowly, focusing on the feel of Changmin’s lips and the warmth of his skin and the scent of his body. He tightens his grip on Changmin’s hands, knotting their fingers together as the kiss deepens. 

“I have to admit,” Changmin breathes when they next surface, “your argument is compelling.”

Another kiss, one that spins him around and drives away every other sense of awareness. On some level, Yunho is conscious of the sun and the cold air and the shirring of the wind through the grass, but the only thing that touches him is Changmin’s kiss, and when they pull away, it physically hurts.

They gaze at one another. The glow of amusement has gone from Changmin’s expression and now he looks wide-eyed. Pensive. Expectant.

Pressure builds in Yunho’s chest, tendrils of emotion reaching and clasping together into something huge and unwieldy that squeezes his heart. _Tell him_ , his brain hammers. _Tell him you love him_.

He flails against it, his conviction melting like the morning mist. If he declares himself too soon, Changmin might run, and Yunho can’t bear the thought of that. He can’t lose the best thing he’s ever had, he just can’t. Maybe he should wait a little longer. Just to be sure. Just to make certain.

Birds erupt from the tree-line, cawing and black-backed and bent as they fly in ever increasing circles. A few moments later, a small group of people emerge from the last straggles of wooded cover and head along the track towards them. 

Yunho feels an inexplicable surge of resentment at the interruption. “Come on.” He takes Changmin’s hand. “Let’s be the first to the temple.”

*

That evening they spend some time getting ready for the double date, which seems like a really bad idea now Yunho has had time to think about it. But Changmin has to meet Donghae at some point, and it may as well be now.

Changmin goes quiet at the prospect of the meeting, his mood probably not helped by Yunho’s assertions that he’ll really like Donghae because Donghae is a fun guy, except for the bit where he speaks his mind a little too bluntly, kind of like Kyuhyun but in a more blokeish way, so don’t pay too much attention to him.

“You mean he doesn’t like me,” Changmin says, grasping the truth of the matter pretty much immediately.

“He doesn’t know you.” Yunho senses mantraps lurking everywhere, jagged steel jaws yawning wide and waiting for him to stumble into them. “He just thinks... uh, he’s of the opinion that...”

Changmin’s mouth does that thing again and goes into a tight line, even though when he speaks he’s obviously trying to be flippant: “He thinks I’m stringing you along?”

 _He thinks you’ll break my heart, and you could, you could_. “Um.” Yunho opens his wardrobe and changes his jacket just as a way of buying himself some time. “It’s more that he’s a bit wary of college students. Jessica, his girlfriend—she hasn’t slept with him yet. And it’s been a while now. So he’s kind of frustrated. But he also likes her, so...”

“You didn’t answer the question.” Changmin meets his gaze in the wardrobe mirror. “And I preferred the other jacket.”

Yunho turns around. “You choose. Either I answer the question or I swap the jacket.”

Changmin smiles slightly. “Swap the jacket.”

The atmosphere is somewhat brittle when they all meet up outside the Vietnamese restaurant that Donghae chose. Jessica is wearing a figure-hugging red dress that shows a good amount of shapely leg. Changmin coos over her shoes, which have spindly heels and wide straps that wrap around her ankles into some sort of approximation of a flower. Turns out his mother has a pair in a different colour. Jessica tosses her long copper-and-blonde hair and takes Changmin’s arm as they go into the restaurant. They make a striking couple, and Yunho thinks he and Donghae must look like trained monkeys as they drag along in their wake, Donghae holding Jessica’s little clutch purse and Yunho half in and half out of his coat.

Jessica and Changmin sit opposite each other and continue their conversation, moving on from shoes to a discussion of where Changmin got his scarf, which is long and flowing and made of some flimsy creamy-white fabric. Donghae slumps in his seat and rolls his eyes at Yunho, who feigns great interest in the menu.

Donghae never goes out to dinner for the purpose of getting to know someone. He goes out in order to eat, and conversation just gets in the way of eating. Yunho knows this from long experience, but Changmin is ignorant of this fact and it seems that Jessica isn’t fully aware of it either. Donghae is trying really hard to be patient, but there’s food all around them at the other tables, bombarding them with the tantalising fragrance of spices and sweetness, and honestly, a man can only take so much before he breaks.

“Babe,” Donghae says, interrupting the flow of chatter. He puts an arm around the back of Jessica’s chair and smiles at her, indicates the menu she’s not even looked at yet. “Let me choose for you, okay, babe?”

Changmin turns to Yunho, eyes dancing. _Babe_ , he mouths, and his shoulders start quivering.

Yunho grabs Changmin’s thigh beneath the tablecloth and gives it a squeeze. Changmin yelps and twists, then clamps a hand over his mouth as he rocks with laughter.

“Aw jeez, do you have to?” Donghae shoots them a disgusted look.

Jessica moves a little closer to Donghae and asks for his recommendations. She tips her head back as she does so, giving him a view right down the front of her dress so Donghae can see the creamy swell of her breasts, and then she smiles up at him. 

Yunho has to hand it to her; this girl knows what she’s doing. Donghae’s thought processes are laughably easy to read— _Tits! Mouth! Tits!_ —and Yunho hopes he’s not so blatantly obvious when it comes to Changmin.

Donghae eventually remembers they were talking about food, by which time Jessica has convinced him to change his own menu choices while making him think it was all his idea in the first place.

Yunho glances at Changmin, murmurs, “I’m not that lame, am I?”

Changmin grins. “I got you to wear that jacket.”

The waiter comes over and they order. Their drinks arrive and Donghae grabs for his beer like a lifeline. Jessica sips at some sort of cocktail with an array of fruit decorating the side of the glass. Changmin asks if he can steal the maraschino cherry, and when she says yes, he plucks it from the glass and, wide-eyed and with the faintest hint of colour on his cheekbones, he holds it out to Yunho.

There’s sticky-sweet liquor glistening on Changmin’s fingers. Yunho leans closer and lets Changmin feed him the cherry, then licks at Changmin’s fingertips.

“Please don’t do that in public,” Donghae says, looking horrified. “I’m scarred for life now.”

Changmin goes all quiet again. Yunho tries to cover the ensuing silence by asking Jessica how her classes are going. “Jess is a civil engineer at Chonnam,” he tells Changmin. “She knows about road core.”

“Excuse me?” Changmin looks mystified, but it gets the conversation going again just as their food is served.

“She lied to me when I first met her,” Donghae says, his gaze fixed on Jessica as she tucks into her bo nuong xien, sliding the pieces of beef from the lemongrass skewers. “She told me she was studying fashion.”

“Really?” Yunho looks up from his bowl of pho.

Jessica blushes. “I didn’t think Hae would be interested in an engineer.”

“Building roads is an important contribution to society,” Donghae says. “What is it that you study again, Changmin?”

“Philosophy.” Changmin looks across the table, expression carefully neutral.

There’s a gleam in Donghae’s eyes. “Oh yeah, that’s it.” 

It seems as if other derogatory remarks are about to be forthcoming, but Yunho’s foot accidentally slips and he kicks Donghae really hard.

Donghae mutters and flags down the waiter for another beer.

“So,” Jessica says with a smile. “How did you two meet?”

Yunho beams. “I fixed his car and he seduced me in lieu of payment.”

Changmin blushes. “I paid you back! And you seduced me first. Walking around with no shirt on like—like...”

“Like it was a burning hot day?” Yunho arches his eyebrows. “You were the one walking around with your tongue hanging out.”

“I was _thirsty_.” Changmin seems to realise how that could be misinterpreted. “Oh, God. Stop it.”

Jessica giggles and says to Changmin, “I’ve seen him without his shirt on, so I can totally understand.”

Donghae scowls. “I look good without a shirt, too,” he tells her. “I’m more ripped than him. And I have a better chest. Not that I spend a lot of time looking at Yunho’s chest because that would be freaky and weird, but if _he_ impressed you with his shirtlessness then I can guarantee you’ll like mine even more.”

Silence. Jessica looks embarrassed. She reaches for her purse and excuses herself for a moment, leaving behind a sense of awkwardness.

“Smooth move, bro,” Yunho says.

Donghae prods at his food, confusion all over his face. “Don’t know what I did wrong. This always happens. She acts interested and it’s as if she really likes me and then she goes running off to the bathroom.”

Changmin takes a breath, glances at Yunho, then says, “Certainly with this situation, it was more the juxtaposition of the conversation—what she was saying and what you were saying had different nuances, and...”

“What?” Donghae frowns, shifts his gaze to Yunho. “Is he like this all the time? Saying this fancy shit no one understands?”

“I understand him fine,” Yunho says calmly.

“I’m just trying to help.” Changmin puts down his chopsticks, a sure sign that he’s attempting to engage with the discussion. “Jessica’s lovely, and you seem to—”

Donghae interrupts. “If you really want to help, go to the little girls’ room and see what’s keeping her.”

Yunho glowers at his friend. “Donghae.”

“Christ.” Throwing down his chopsticks, Donghae leans back in his seat and runs both hands through his hair. There’s a pleading expression on his face and he looks really uncomfortable. “Can we talk about football or something?”

“Okay.” Yunho is the slightest bit concerned. “Bro, are all your dates like this?”

Donghae retrieves his chopsticks. Fidgets. “No. Usually we talk less and I try to kiss her more.”

“Maybe you should try talking more,” Changmin suggests.

This advice goes down like a lead balloon, and they sit and eat in silence until Jessica rejoins them, whereupon they all make too-bright, too-enthusiastic conversation about the upcoming English Premier League match between Chelsea and Manchester United. That’s another minefield to be negotiated, because Changmin is an ardent Chelsea fan and Donghae hero-worships Wayne Rooney and won’t hear anything against Man U. Strangely, their antagonism now seems to create a bond between them, though this could just be because Yunho says he prefers Leeds and they both take the piss out of him for that.

The evening staggers to a close, and Jessica says she has to go home. Donghae looks upset. No doubt he was hoping that tonight was the night, but it clearly isn’t. Yunho and Changmin stand around on a street corner while Donghae flags down a taxi and kisses Jessica goodnight. Then he joins them, disconsolate, and says, “May as well go back to mine for a bit. We can watch _One Hundred Great Championship Goals_.”

Yunho would rather take Changmin to bed, but Changmin flicks back his hair and tells Donghae that he’d really like to watch the DVD. Yunho gets this squishy feeling and wants to hug Changmin for being so sweet and kind and for trying so hard with someone who’s frankly been a complete twat to him all night.

Donghae’s apartment is close enough that they can walk there. It’s in a good neighbourhood and it’s spacious, all white and grey minimalist decor and strategic up-lighters, with a leather sofa and armchairs, a massive TV hooked up to the cutting-edge stereo system, and an entire wall of DVDs. Usually the place is a lot more cluttered, which further goes to show how much Donghae was hoping that Jessica would stay the night, but Yunho doesn’t say anything. Instead he sinks into the cool embrace of his favourite armchair and watches Changmin look through the alphabetised DVD collection.

“ _Quatermass_!” Changmin exclaims. “Oh my God, you have _The Quatermass Experiment_. That’s so awesome.”

“Isn’t it legendary?” Donghae brightens at this excited response. “We can totally watch that instead of _Championship Goals_ , if you like.”

Yunho puts one hand over his face and thinks this will be a very long night.

They end up watching the football DVD. By goal thirty-three, they’ve finished a bottle of vodka between them and Donghae has graduated to Jack Daniels. Changmin is slouched in the other armchair, his glass resting on one knee as he toys with the ends of his long, fluttery white scarf. He gazes around the apartment and says, “This is nice.”

Stretched out across the full length of the sofa, Donghae nods. “Some of us don’t like living in hovels.”

Changmin directs a questioning look at Yunho.

“Some of us spend our money on the business,” Yunho says, squinting at Donghae over the top of his glass. “I see no reason to move into a bigger place just yet. I like living behind the garage. That place has everything I need.”

Donghae snorts and waves his whiskey in the air as he addresses Changmin. “This is one of the problems with him. He settles for a lot of things but always overreaches in one aspect of his life.”

A polite smile wavers on Changmin’s lips. “Oh?”

Yunho sighs, already knowing where this is headed. “Bro...”

Donghae squirms upright, managing to spill whiskey over his shirt at the same time. He’s quite far gone, Yunho realises, and then Donghae fastens a gimlet look on Yunho and demands, “Have you told him about the banker? And what about that TV exec? Only local TV, of course, but still. And then there was the—”

Yunho needs to shut this down right now. “Hae, stop. Changmin doesn’t want to know all this stuff.”

“Maybe I do,” Changmin says quietly.

“It’s not important.”

“I want to know,” Changmin insists, putting his glass down on the floor and sitting up straight in a way that Donghae still hasn’t been able to manage. “It might help me understand you.”

Yunho blinks. “I’m not difficult to understand!”

Donghae crows, bangs his free hand on the sofa then points a wavering finger. “You wanna understand this guy, kiddo, you need to be a psychiatrist, not a philosopher.”

“Psychologist,” Yunho corrects. “Stop being a dick, bro.”

“Changmin. Mate.” Donghae leans forward, eyes glittering with unholy glee at all the embarrassing, salacious gossip he’s got to spill. “When you dump him, he is going to be inconsolable for _months_. Just like he was when the banker dumped him. And the TV guy. And the deputy headmaster.”

“I dumped him, actually.” Yunho sits up, too, his temper like an inward spiral, getting smaller and tighter and glowing ever brighter. “And besides...”

Donghae raises his voice and talks over Yunho’s protests. “You know what I always say? Guys like us—me and this idiot here, I mean—guys like us can mess around all we like with people like you and Jess, but that’s the end of it, right? Just fucking. Just sex. No strings. No falling in love. That’s a mug’s game. That breaks the rules.”

Yunho’s temper snaps. “For fuck’s sake, Hae, I am not in love with Changmin!”

A long, rolling silence descends. On the TV, Rooney scores and runs around the field with his shirt over his head, and the crowd roars its approval.

“Well, now.” Donghae sits back, something shifting behind his eyes.

Oh fuck, what has he done? Yunho wants to rewind the last couple of minutes. He can’t look at Changmin. Doesn’t dare. It might just kill him if he sees Changmin’s face. He has no idea what his own expression is like. Some sort of definitive action is required. Yunho levers himself out of the armchair and gets to his feet. “We’re leaving.”

Donghae says nothing.

Changmin gets up, murmurs a few polite phrases of thanks for the drinks, and follows Yunho out of the apartment. They don’t look at each other, not when they’re in the lift, not even when they’re on the street where the night can hide most of their emotions. Yunho jams his hands into his pockets and walks fast. Changmin matches his pace, the long white scarf trailing like a ghost. There’s a bite to the air, the cruelty of winter dropping between them.

They walk the length of one block before Yunho can’t bear the tension. He slows his pace. “I’m sorry for Donghae’s behaviour. He gets a bit cynical when he’s had a few.”

“It’s okay.”

Yunho darts a glance at Changmin. He looks blank, unmoved, as cold and beautiful as if carved from stone. Unease roils in Yunho’s stomach. “What I said back there—I was angry. I didn’t mean...” He can’t finish the sentence.

Changmin shrugs. Tries the glimmer of a smile. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay.” Yunho comes to a halt. He reaches out, pulls Changmin close, and kisses him. It’s the only thing he can think of to do, but even as Changmin’s lips part in response and Yunho wraps him up a little tighter, he knows it’s not going to work this time.

They break free. Changmin takes a step back, his expression guarded. “Maybe we should cool it for a while.”

Yunho panics. “I don’t want to.” Shit, he sounds like a child. He tries to justify his refusal. “We hardly see each other anyway. Why should we cool it?”

Changmin lifts his chin, the light from the streetlamps slicing elegance and shadow along his cheek, his jaw, emphasising the proud tilt of his head. “I need to finish my dissertation. I have to hand it in within the next few weeks and there’s still a lot to be done.”

Yunho knows this is bullshit. Changmin is simply not that disorganised to leave the completion of his dissertation to the last minute. “Don’t give me excuses. Please don’t do that.”

“It’s not an excuse.” Now Changmin can’t look at him. He turns his head, exhales. “Okay, it is. I don’t know what you want from me.”

This statement is so patently what-the-fuck that Yunho stands there, stunned. The childishness comes out again, a kneejerk defence. “You were the one who said I was your boyfriend.”

Irritation flashes over Changmin’s face. “What else was I going to say to my friends? ‘Hey guys, I’m inviting over a complete stranger that I shagged once’?”

“It was more than once,” Yunho shoots back.

“You know what I mean!”

There’s real pain in Changmin’s voice. Yunho fights through his unworthy responses. He doesn’t know how to fix this. “Changminnie...”

“Don’t. Just don’t.” Now Changmin sounds weary. He catches up the end of his scarf and wraps it around and around his neck. “I’m tired and a bit too drunk and I think we should talk about this tomorrow.”

“We should talk about it now,” Yunho says, “because tomorrow you’ll go home and you still won’t have told me anything.”

Changmin lifts his gaze and gives him a cautious look. “What?”

This really isn’t the kind of conversation to be had on the street at this time of night. At any time of night, actually. It’s cold and Yunho is starting to get a headache, the cushioning effect of the alcohol seeping away to leave him raw and vulnerable. He wants to go home and have this discussion or argument or whatever it is somewhere more comfortable, in a place where he can hold Changmin and read his reactions rather than guessing and second-guessing.

“There’s so much I don’t know about you,” Yunho says, and it comes out sounding hurt and wounded. “So much you won’t tell me. Like, what the hell went on with your ex and why do you keep shutting me out, and when were you going to tell me about Cambridge?”

Seems like that jabs at a sore spot. Changmin’s mouth drops open and he takes another step back, almost unbalances into the gutter. He stares at Yunho for a long, silent moment, then shakes his head. “You want too much.”

That hurts like a kick to the head. Anger splinters through him, and Yunho shouts, “I’m supposed to be your _boyfriend_!”

“And I don’t know how to handle that!” Changmin yells back, fury and utter panic blazing in his eyes.

They stare at each other, both wounded, uncertain what to do next. The anger drains away as suddenly as it flared up, and Yunho reaches out again, and this time Changmin comes to him and they scrunch into each other’s arms, afraid to let go.

“I’m sorry,” Yunho whispers into Changmin’s hair. “I’m full of shit. I’m sorry.”

Changmin claws his hands into Yunho’s coat. His fingers work at the cloth, clenching and unclenching. “Our first fight.” He’s trying to laugh it away. “Wow. Alert the media.”

“Talk to me, okay? This is hard enough as it is. You have to talk to me.” Yunho pulls back, strokes Changmin’s face. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t.” Lifting his head, Changmin kisses Yunho. He draws back at the sound of a car coming down the street. Headlights splash over them. The pounding beat of the radio flicks out then distorts, fading. Brake lights show red as the car slows at a junction.

Changmin puts a hand on Yunho’s chest. “Can we have make up sex now?”

Yunho stares at him, too addled to make any sense of the offer.

Looking chastened, Changmin drops his gaze. “Sorry. My timing is... not very good.” He keeps his hand on Yunho’s chest, then curls his fingers to grip the collar of Yunho’s coat and holds on as if he’s afraid of drowning on dry land. Taking a deep breath, he says, “Cambridge is one of the universities I’ve applied to for my PhD.”

Yunho had kind of worked that one out for himself some time ago, but he’d pushed it aside, content to live in a bubble of ignorance. “I’ve never been to England.”

“Would you come and see me?”

 _Would you still want me when you’re on the other side of the world?_

Yunho swallows, tells the truth. “Yes.”

Changmin closes his eyes. When he looks up again, his gaze is clear. “I’ve also applied to Chosun.”

If Cambridge was a surprise, Chosun is a shock. Yunho is the one to back away now. “Here? You want to come to Gwangju?”

“I decided before I met you.” Changmin shuts down again, big dark eyes wary. “That was one of the reasons I attended the conference in August, so I could meet with the professorial staff.” He looks away, scrubs a hand through his hair at the back. “Or I might stay in Seoul. I don’t know yet. I’m still waiting to hear if I’ve been accepted. I wanted options.”

This whole conversation has spun Yunho’s world right out of its careful trajectory. He stares, shakes his head. “I don’t know what to say.”

Changmin gives him a pained smile. “That’s why I didn’t tell you.”


	11. Chapter 11

Yunho spends Sunday afternoon locked up in the garage with industrial rock blasting out of the CD player and a Nissan Pathfinder hoisted up on the jacks waiting for new brake pads. Despite the lure of honest work, Yunho sits behind the desk with the logbook open and Thursday’s newspaper folded to the puzzles section. He twirls a black biro between his fingers as he tries to solve the sudoku. Whoever invented this thing must be a freak, because Yunho can’t work it out and this is supposed to be an easy one. He starts colouring in the squares instead to make a face, and then fills the gaps with random numbers when the face looks too sad.

There’s the rattle of keys in the side door, and then Donghae comes in. He fakes surprise, which pisses Yunho off because the music is so loud it can probably be heard half a mile away.

Raising his voice, Donghae calls out, “Not watching the Grand Prix?”

Yunho turns down the volume on the CD player and gets up from behind the desk. “It’s only Korea. Crappiest circuit on the calendar.”

“I dunno, India is a bit of a yawn, too. These new tracks are all pretty shit. The only reason to watch Abu Dhabi is that giant glowing building that looks like some kind of STD.”

Yunho goes to the other side of the garage. Donghae meanders after him. Obviously he’s psyching himself up to spit out what he really came here to say. If there’s one thing that Donghae is really bad at, it’s apologising. It’s always such a palaver for him to get into the right frame of mind to utter the necessary words, and today is no different. After a few minutes of intense study of the Pathfinder, Donghae blurts out, “Dude, I’m sorry if I fucked things up with you and Changmin.”

“You didn’t.” Yunho busies himself moving a stack of tyres one at a time. They don’t need to be moved, but it makes him feel better to do it. Plus it looks tidier. Since he’s been dating Changmin, he’s found himself tidying a lot of things around here—physical things, inanimate things—even though just about everything else has unravelled and gone sprawling all over the place.

“Oh.” Donghae stands there. “I didn’t?”

“We had a fight. We made up, but he decided to go home early.” Yunho shrugs. “It cleared the air, I guess. But I still don’t know what the fuck I’m doing and I’m not sure he does, either.”

Frustration rings through his voice. Annoyed, Yunho tightens his grip on the tyre and heaves it on top of the new stack. “He might go to England next year.”

Donghae scuffs his foot through the concrete dust. “Bummer.”

“Yeah.”

In the background, the gravel-voiced singer of the rock band is swamped by synthesised beats and doubled lines of robotic guitar and bass.

Venturing a little closer, Donghae says, “You want to talk about it?”

Yunho shifts the last tyre. “To you? No.”

“Bro, I’m sorry.”

“We’re fine. We’re good.” Yunho decides that now would be the ideal time to start on those brake pads. Familiar, soothing, monotonous work. He scoots the trolley across the floor beneath the Nissan, lays out his tools, and slides on underneath the vehicle.

The next track starts, all discordant squiggled noise that resolves into a driving rhythm. Donghae goes over and switches it off then comes back to sit cross-legged on the floor beside the Pathfinder.

“Bro, I feel bad, okay? Changmin seems like a nice guy. I was out of line last night. Shouldn’t have said that stuff. But—” there’s always a ‘but’ with Donghae, “you have to admit he fits the pattern. You always go for the distant types. Literally, in this case. He’s just one more of your attainable-unattainable guys who want you for sex and then dump you when you get all clingy.”

Yunho grits his teeth. “This is a weird-ass apology.”

“Not apologising, bro, I’m giving you advice.”

“I don’t want it.”

“Well,” Donghae says, “you’re stuck under this motor so you have to listen or I’ll pull the jacks out.”

Just fucking great. Yunho scowls at the front left wheel arch. “Hurry up and say what you need to say.”

“Forgot my thread because you interrupted.”

“I’m clingy,” Yunho snaps.

“Yeah, you are.” Donghae lies flat on the floor and looks at him. “I get it, dude, I really do. Just because I’m not the settling down type doesn’t mean I can’t understand it. But is Changmin the one you really want to settle down with? You’ve been doing all the work. I don’t just mean on his car, either. When you like someone, you get kind of intense and by intense I mean _intense_ like scary intense, and...”

“I get it.” There must be some rust or something flaking off the underside of the Pathfinder because his eyes are stinging. Yunho blinks rapidly to clear his vision.

Donghae stares in at him. “Think about it, okay?”

Yunho nods once, then resumes his work. He waits until Donghae has gone away before he puts down the wrench and stares blindly up at the easy, complicated fittings of the engine above him.

*

Changmin calls him that evening. Their conversation is stilted and awkward, and Yunho hates every second. They stop and start through a dozen different gambits. Each one leads right back around to the things they’re not saying. Frustration builds, tightening across Yunho’s chest, and by the time the call drags to a close after five long minutes, his shoulders are set like concrete and he feels awful.

They both hang up after a hideous silence. Yunho stares at the phone. It’s not like him to clam up, but what Donghae said this afternoon has been nagging and scratching at him all that time, and he hates feeling self-conscious, _hates_ it, because it leaves him with this echoing sense of emptiness that he can’t fill on his own.

The phone rings. He answers. 

“That was shit,” Changmin says. He sounds just as frustrated as Yunho feels. “Can we try again?”

They talk, less elliptically this time but still wary. Some of the barriers start to come down, and by the twenty-minute mark Changmin’s voice has mellowed and though they’re not quite in the right mindset for phone sex, Changmin is sweet and flirty and seems to have regained some of his confidence.

Yunho still feels like he’s on the back foot. He’s slow to reply to Changmin’s arch comments, slower to respond to the gentle flirtations. Halfway through Changmin telling him about how Kyuhyun got so bored during the Grand Prix that he decided to make a banana loaf but with courgettes because they didn’t have any bananas and courgettes are kind of the same shape but greener, Yunho cuts across him and says, “You’re always more open over the phone. Why is it so hard to talk to me when we’re together?”

Changmin takes a breath, then is silent for a long time. “Because,” he says at last, “because you’re kind of intense.”

The answer isn’t entirely unexpected, but it still hurts in a sort of dull, achy way. “Donghae accused me of the exact same thing.”

“It’s true.” Another silence, shorter this time, and Changmin says, “I like it, but it confuses me, too. Sometimes I feel stifled by it. By the way you want to do everything for me. It makes me feel like I’m taking advantage.”

And oh, that hurts even more. “I like doing things for you.” The sentence comes out all jerky and disconnected. “It makes me feel good.”

“I know.” Changmin exhales, and there’s a muffled sound like he’s turned onto his side and the phone is pressed right against his face, and when he next speaks, his voice is different; softer. “But sometimes I think you want something in return. Something more. Something...”

Now they’re at the heart of it. “Something,” Yunho echoes, not quite a question.

A very long silence. He can hear the change in Changmin’s breathing; can sense the struggle to find the right words. “Yun,” Changmin says, “some things take time.” 

“I can wait,” Yunho says without knowing what he’s promising.

“Can you?” Changmin asks, and it’s not a challenge but a whisper of hope.

* * *

Even though it feels unnatural, Yunho gives Changmin space. At first it feels like he’s cut off his right arm or some other vital part of his anatomy, and he spends too long reading back through emails and text messages just to hold onto the way it used to be.

He thinks about what Changmin said, thinks what Donghae said, and as October drifts into November, he sits down in front of the TV with the memories of his previous lovers and watches the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix without taking note of who’s in the lead.

He watches the change of afternoon into dusk into night, the lights vicious on the circuit and the bark of V8s opening up and the snap-snap sound of the engines under heavy braking. He thinks of all the times he’s gone around and around, straights and curves and hairpins, how many times he’s read the track conditions wrong and gone backwards into a wall or tumbled sideways into a gravel-trap. Every time he’s ignored the warning flags— _no overtaking; slow down; let him pass, you’re about to be lapped_ —but he’d never paid any attention to anything but the chequered flag at the end.

He thinks he knows this circuit, but he doesn’t. He keeps on making the same mistakes over and over, like a stupid rookie. Yunho knows what he wants, but he’s never trusted anyone else to get it right. It’s just him, and he’s not a team all on his own.

* * *

Yunho knows things are shifting into a different gear when he stops looking at the handful of sexy pictures he has of Changmin. Instead he keeps studying the more innocent images, the one of Changmin sitting on the grass outside the dorms, or the one of him looking aggrieved as he gestures at Kyuhyun, who’s chortling over some joke Yunho can’t even remember now, or the one of him curled up on the sofa lost in thought, pulling at the length of his hair.

But the one picture that affects Yunho the most is the one of Changmin lying at an angle on his bed, on that blue and green duvet, and his feet are resting high up on the wall and he’s wearing black skinny jeans and his legs go on for miles. He’s wearing a fluffy sweater with the sleeves rolled up and he’s surrounded by books and photocopies, and his hair spills across the pillow and he’s smiling and smiling and there’s that look in his eyes, the one that says _Hello, I really like you_.

Yunho looks at that picture every night before he goes to sleep, just to remind himself that patience is a virtue and this is worth it, oh how it’s worth it.

They still talk, although as the days draw on Changmin is more and more distracted, going in circles over the final touches to his dissertation. It seems there’s always one more footnote to add or one more reference to check, and the whole thing seems to be consuming him like some kind of monstrous, ravenous thing that drains him of energy and leaves him curled up and saying, “Yunho, tell me about engines, tell me about drive-shafts, tell me about spark plugs, just talk to me about anything, just let me hear your voice.”

At the close of the first full week of November, Changmin reads the entire of his dissertation, including footnotes, down the phone.

“You could have emailed it,” Yunho tells him. “I’d have read it.”

“I needed you to hear it,” Changmin says. “I needed to hear it through your reactions. I know that doesn’t make any sense.”

“It does,” Yunho says, because it’s like when he’s tuning an engine and the revs build and build and the note changes and tells him where it hurts so he can fix it.

Changmin is silent for a moment, and then he says, “I miss you. I miss you so much,” and it comes out forced and sharp, as if he doesn’t want Yunho to hear any emotion beneath the words.

Last month, Yunho would have suggested that he drive up to Seoul tomorrow. But he’s trying to be better than that. He’s trying not to be so fucking clingy, and besides, this isn’t just about him. Changmin needs space, he needs to breathe.

“I miss you too,” he says, and then, because he can’t change everything about himself overnight or even over a couple of weeks, he adds, “I want to see you. Just say when. We can arrange something.”

“Soon,” Changmin says, and his voice has dropped and now the words are a conduit for emotion rather than meaning. “Just as soon as I hand this damn dissertation in. Soon.”

They’re both quiet, listening to one another’s silence and all the things unspoken inside it, and then Changmin says, “Everything’s different now, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Yunho says. “But it’s still amazing.”

* * *

Donghae comes into work the next day looking twenty feet tall but also tiny and humbled. Yunho takes one glance and knows what’s happened. He doesn’t say anything, just sits at the desk with one hand curled around a mug of coffee while he turns the pages of the latest _F1 Racing_ magazine. 

Donghae wanders around aimlessly for a while, adjusting the direction of the radiant heaters that Yunho had angled near the Kia Sportage he’d been working on. Finally he comes over to the desk and flicks through the logbook, then stands next to Yunho and looks at the magazine. 

They both pretend to read an interview with Martin Whitmarsh.

“So,” Yunho says when it becomes obvious that Donghae’s not going to speak first, “you and Jess, huh?”

Donghae turns a page in the magazine. “Yeah.” His voice is hollowed out, as if he’s scooped all the emotion from it and doesn’t know where to put it.

Yunho stares at an advert for Samsung mobile phones. “And?”

There’s a long silence, and then Donghae says, “I was her first. That’s why she was waiting. She wanted to be sure. And all that time I thought she was just mucking me around. She wasn’t.”

Another silence. Yunho turns the page. They look at an article about crap F1 drivers through the decades.

“A girl like her,” Donghae says softly, “giving it to a guy like me.” He pauses, and then says in a rush, “I think I love her.”

“Did you tell her?”

“Christ, no.” Donghae’s laughter is messed up and shaky. “She’s already got me by the balls. No point in giving her any more power. Not yet. Not until...”

Yunho looks up. “You want her to say it first.”

Donghae’s blushing. He turns his head. “Yeah. I guess. That’s how it’s supposed to go, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh.” Donghae stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Shit. But also not.”

“Yeah,” Yunho says.

They carry on not-reading the article for another few minutes, and then when Donghae mutters something about starting work, Yunho says, “Hae—I’m glad for you. I hope it works out.”

Donghae’s expression is both triumphant and terrified. “Yeah. Me, too.”


	12. Chapter 12

The first snow falls on Monday night. Just a light dusting, nothing that will last, but it provokes the usual round of commentary on global warming and predictions of ice ages. Yunho flicks past these moribund reports in the newspaper and ends up looking through the classifieds. He spends some time studying the adverts for apartments for sale. 

It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just an idle thought. He’s absolutely not making plans. If he’s thinking about buying a place, it’s for him and it’s because he’s reached that stage in life where the flat at the back of the garage isn’t enough anymore. 

He’s just looking. It’s not a crime to daydream.

That evening, Changmin calls to announce that he’s handed in his dissertation and he’s done all the accompanying paperwork and now he’s free. Except the last word is extended by about a minute: _freeeeeeeeeeeeeee_ , and Yunho can hear, in the background, the echoes provided by Kyuhyun and Minho. They all sound shitfaced.

“Are you drunk?” Yunho asks, amused.

“Yes,” Changmin says. “It’s snowing and I’m drunk and I want you to come here and fuck me.”

Yunho wants nothing more than to grant this wish, but reality is a harsh thing. “Baby, by the time I reach you, you’ll have passed out.”

Changmin seems to think about this for a while, or maybe he’s already passed out, or perhaps he’s just struggling to open another can of beer, and then he says, all plaintive, “Why are you so far away? Why can’t you live next door?”

With a sigh, Yunho glances at the open newspaper. The pages full of apartments for sale seem to mock him. “Call me when you’re sober.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Changmin says. “Oh, Yunho. I—”

Whatever drunken declaration would have followed is cut off as Minho shouts that they should all go sledging across the lawn on plastic bags. The call drops immediately after that, and Yunho is left staring at the phone wondering if Changmin was about to say what he thought he was about to say, or if he was going to say something entirely different.

*

Changmin calls mid-afternoon on the following day. “This weekend,” he says without preamble. “Are you busy?

Yunho knows the answer without having to look in the logbook, but he does it anyway, just to be sure that Donghae didn’t add a dozen jobs that involve stripping every vehicle right back to its component parts and reassembling them.

“Only two cars booked in,” Yunho says. “Both are fairly small jobs. I’ll be done with them and be on the road by Friday lunchtime or so.”

“Good.” There’s something in Changmin’s voice. Something new, like he’s hugging some sort of wonderful secret to himself and he’s bursting to share it. “So you can be here by early evening?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

Now Changmin laughs. “Kyu and Minho are going away for the weekend. Not together or anything because I think the world might implode if that happened, but Minho is going to visit his parents and Kyu... I’m not sure what he’s doing but I think it involves geekery.”

Yunho closes the logbook and puts his elbows on the desk. “Look who’s talking, Mr Straw and Plant Handicrafts Expert.”

Changmin snorts. “You’ll never let me forget that, will you?”

“Never ever.”

A tiny silence, and then Changmin says, “I’ve really missed you. I know I say it almost every night, but...”

“I know, baby. I know.” Yunho closes his eyes and leans into the phone. “I also know I’m going to be a wreck for the rest of the week until I can see you.”

“You’re tough,” Changmin says, laughing. “You can cope with it.”

“You mean I can jerk off a lot. Again.” Yunho mock-sighs. “I’ll be forced to fantasise wildly about what I’m going to do to you in your free-of-all-flatmates apartment. Try to make copies of Kyuhyun’s and Minho’s keys, I think we should fuck in every room.”

“Oh God, no. That’s so wrong.” Changmin laughs and laughs until they hang up.

The week passes. Even with the heaters in the garage, it’s still cold, and Yunho and Donghae start taking their breaks in the warmth of the flat out back. Donghae notices the collection of particulars on various apartments for sale around the city. He shuffles through them, offering comments on location and amenities now and then, but says nothing else. Yunho is glad of that.

On Friday, Yunho wakes early. The weather has held for the past few days, cold but bright, and the roads are pretty much clear. Heavy snowfall is predicted for that night, especially around Seoul, but that’s okay. Yunho doesn’t think he and Changmin will be going very far this weekend.

He wants to arrive early and surprise Changmin, so he’d worked late last night to clear the two jobs left outstanding. He’d even packed his bag the night before. Now he’s up and moving, he doesn’t want to stop for anything. Yunho doesn’t even bother shaving. He bolts down some breakfast, throws his bag into the back of the BMW, and gets on the road northbound.

Even with ice and slush and slow-moving traffic, he still makes good time, arriving at the university around midday. When he taps at the door of apartment 516, Minho lets him in.

“Surprise,” Yunho says.

Minho grins. “Good timing. Kyu’s already gone and I’m about to head off.” He picks up his bag from the kitchen table and calls out, “Dude, I’m leaving now, see you Monday afternoon.”

There’s a muffled acknowledgement from the direction of Changmin’s room.

“Don’t trash the place, yeah?” Minho turns back and lowers his voice, wagging a finger at Yunho. “You trash it, you fix it. New house rules.” He gives Yunho a wink and a matey slap on the shoulder and goes out.

The door closes. Yunho puts down his bag and stands there, aware that his heart is racing a little too fast. It’s not just because he’s climbed up all those stairs, either. It’s been almost four weeks since he’s held Changmin, and it’s been the longest four weeks he’s ever known. Four weeks of coming to terms with the shape of his life and what he wants to achieve with it; four weeks of patience and thought and observation of Donghae taking the same struggling, jerky relationship steps with Jessica. Four weeks of knowing beyond any doubt that Changmin is it. The One. Perfect for him.

Now he just has to convince Changmin. And maybe Changmin knows it already, or maybe he doesn’t, and this, _this_ is scary now, but it’s a good kind of scary, and his nervousness is lashed around with desire, and and and— _why_ is he still standing there? 

Yunho crosses the kitchen and opens the door to Changmin’s room.

Changmin is seated at the desk, making notes from a book. He glances up, obviously thinking that Minho had forgotten something. “Did you—” he begins, then stops, surprise on his face and then utter, unguarded delight. “Yunho!”

Fuck if that doesn’t make everything worth it.

Changmin is out of his chair so fast that it rocks backwards and crashes to the floor. He doesn’t go back and right it the way he normally would. He rockets across the room and hurls himself into Yunho’s arms, babbling nonsense like _oh God, you’re here, you’re here_ and _you’re bad, why didn’t you tell me_ and Yunho’s favourite, _kiss me, kiss me now_.

They kiss, desperate and hungry at first, and Changmin grabs hold of Yunho’s coat and shoves him up against the wall, keeps him there with both hands flat against his chest. “Yes, oh God, yes,” Changmin breathes, and kisses him again.

Yunho catches Changmin by the wrists and holds him back for a moment, just wanting to look at him. Changmin allows it. He seems different; free and happy and confident. Maybe it’s because he’s finished his dissertation, but Yunho hopes it’s something more than that.

“I didn’t expect you for hours yet,” Changmin says. “This is amazing.”

“I couldn’t wait. I needed to see you.” Yunho pulls him close again and they totter sideways along the wall until they fall across the bed. They wind around one another like vines, trying to get as close as possible while still fully dressed, and they rub and grind together, not because they’re in any rush to get off but for the sheer joy of being able to touch and feel.

They kiss for a long time, the embrace going past the sparking of lust into something deeper, until Yunho isn’t just aware of the softness of Changmin’s lips and the way he smiles into the kiss; he’s aware of Changmin’s heartbeat and every infinitesimal flicker of movement Changmin makes, and he’s aware of their breathing, their shared air, and it pulls at him, drags him down and then further down into something beyond pleasure.

When the kiss ends, they nuzzle at each other and smile and smile. Changmin is almost glowing with happiness. “I have something to tell you.”

Trying to be cool, Yunho raises an eyebrow. “Are you pregnant?”

Changmin thumps him. “No, you dickhead.”

Yunho laughs. “Okay, tell me.”

A mysterious smile curves Changmin’s gorgeous mouth. “I’ll tell you later. Over dinner.”

“You mean we have to go out? Can’t we stay in and stay naked all weekend?”

“Yes. No.” Changmin laughs, too, and he looks so happy that Yunho can’t deny him anything. “We’re going out for dinner because I want to go out for dinner.”

“Okay,” Yunho says, because whatever it is Changmin wants to tell him must be pretty awesome, and he thinks it may just involve the L-word. So maybe he should man up and get ready to say it, too, because he does, he really does, he loves Changmin so much he can’t even begin to quantify it. “I have something to tell you, too.”

Now it’s Changmin’s turn to ask, “Are _you_ pregnant?”

“Well, I’ve had this really strange craving for strawberries recently...”

Changmin snorts and shoves at him. “Dork.”

There’s a moment of silence. They carry on smiling at each other, and Changmin’s gaze is clear, no worry, no wariness, just happiness.

Then Yunho remembers where they are, and he remembers other relevant facts, too, and he says, “We’re alone, right? That means I can do what I’ve wanted to do for ages.”

“What’s that?”

“Take a shower with you.” Yunho disentangles himself and bounces off the narrow bed. “C’mon, Changminnie, let’s get wet.”

Turns out that the cubicle isn’t as big as he’d thought, not with the two of them crammed into it. Sex wouldn’t be impossible but it might get painful, and Yunho abandons his fantasy and enjoys the reality instead of a naked, wet Changmin in his arms. They wash each other’s hair and spend an inordinately long time soaping each other up and down, following the path of water across skin and mapping one another’s bodies with their hands, with kisses.

“I should shave,” Yunho says above the beat of the water. He runs gentle fingers over Changmin’s face. “I’ve scratched you a little here.”

Changmin looks at him, big dark eyes full of fire. “I don’t care.”

The response gives Yunho pause for a moment. “Baby,” he says, “if I don’t shave, I’ll mark you even more.”

Even though the shower-spray is still warm, Changmin gets all shivery at this. “Yes. Yes.”

Realisation brings a slam of lust so hard Yunho’s knees almost buckle. He leans close, prickles his jaw against Changmin’s shoulder. “You want that? Want me to rub my face all over you?”

Changmin grabs onto him. “God, yes, please.”

They make it back to Changmin’s room, step wet footprints over the jumble of their discarded clothes and drop onto the bed. They’re both still dripping with water, fresh and clean, and it’s like this is all new, almost a first time again. Yunho tickles Changmin, who laughs and squirms, slipping out of his grasp only to roll back into the embrace. They kiss, hot and hungry, and Changmin thrashes around, giggling and quivering, resisting Yunho’s every attempt to lay him flat. He keeps on curling up into a ball, and whenever Yunho goes to unravel him, Changmin wrestles against it, and he laughs and laughs and it’s just so joyous. 

Then Yunho catches him, pins him down, and Changmin jerks up, breaths hot and panting. He bolts sideways like he wants to try climbing up the wall, but Yunho won’t let him go anywhere. “Oh baby,” Yunho says, “gonna make you come so hard.”

Changmin shivers, eyes bright and feverish. “Make me,” he says, defiant and challenging and so fucking sexy. “ _Make_ me.”

Yunho crawls to the bottom of the bed and starts at Changmin’s feet, holds him by the back of the ankle and rubs the plush of his stubble against the arch of Changmin’s right foot. Changmin jumps and tries to pull free, but Yunho pushes him down and repeats the action. Changmin’s toes curl. He moans and ramps up with his hips and tries to simultaneously get his foot free and wrap his leg around the back of Yunho’s neck.

“Wait, Changminnie, wait for me.” Yunho rubs his face against the arch of Changmin’s left foot now, following up the rough scratchiness with a long, curving wet lick.

“Yun _ho_.” Changmin bucks again, grabs handfuls of the duvet and twists his fingers in tight. “Oh God. Don’t. Don’t stop.”

Changmin’s legs go on forever. Yunho takes his time, worships every inch, grazing the pale flesh still soft from their shower and raising red marks all the way up. Sometimes he just lays his face against Changmin’s leg and presses down, prickling the skin, and other times he scrapes over and over, and Changmin makes breathless, wanton noises that seem to spiral up and up and echo around the room.

When he rubs too hard and feels Changmin flinch, Yunho always soothes the hurt with his mouth. He licks and sucks, tasting the memory of the lemongrass-and-whatever shower gel, and he makes Changmin’s skin all wet again, strokes his tongue up and down and around. The higher he gets, the stronger the scent and heat and taste of arousal blossoming across Changmin’s skin. 

“Yunho, I have to—I need...” Changmin lets go of the crumpled duvet with one hand and clamps it around his dick. He starts jerking off, rapid and desperate.

“No, baby.” Yunho moves up and holds Changmin’s hand out of the way. “I told you to wait.” He nips at the inside of Changmin’s thigh and feels him jolt, then nuzzles into his balls, gives him a little lick. “Just for that, I’m going to punish you. Turn over.”

Changmin moans and squirms. “Ohhh yes, yes, please punish me.” He rolls onto his front and ruts against the bed, humping the duvet like a horny slut, and Yunho slides an arm beneath Changmin’s hips and lifts him up onto his knees. Changmin tries to sink down again, but Yunho holds him still, positions him so his ass is up high and his face is buried between his arms, and he’s trembling and pre-come is leaking everywhere, little wet patches of it on the already damp blue and green duvet, streaks of it on Changmin’s thighs, on Yunho’s hands.

Yunho admires the view. “You have the most perfect ass, Changminnie. So round and tight. So _inviting_ —” and he burrows between the firm peachy cheeks and licks his way inwards, licks and licks and then presses his tongue to Changmin’s hole and forces on in.

Changmin makes a sound halfway between a wail and a grunt. The duvet shirrs. Changmin’s body tightens and he rocks forward, thrusts back. He rubs against Yunho’s mouth and makes long, sexy noises loud enough for the both of them.

Yunho grabs at his dick and gives himself a tug in time to Changmin’s glorious gasping cries. Fuck, he’ll go over in a minute. He squeezes the base of his cock and lifts his head, licks all over Changmin’s ass-cheeks until his skin is gleaming with saliva, and then Yunho rubs his face against the wetness, leaving behind erratic rough prickles and stripes of sensation.

Changmin yells. He’s shaking, his body locked down so tight that he’s actually shaking and the headboard is tremble-banging against the wall and they’re not even fucking yet.

“Too much?” Yunho asks.

“Again,” Changmin shouts, the word snapped out like a whiplash. “Do it again.”

“Uh-uh, baby, I’m going to use my fingers now. You’re going to take them nice and slow and I’m going to stretch you good and open.” Yunho scrapes his teeth over Changmin’s ass, a tiny love-bite, then licks over the mark. He reaches for the bedside drawer and the bottle of lube. He warms it, the gel slick and glossy, and then he sinks two fingers into the tiny pink puckered hole. “Oh yeah. Like that, Changminnie.”

Changmin sobs, lifts up and balances so he’s on his hands and knees, the impetus forcing him back so he screws himself onto Yunho’s fingers. His thighs are trembling and sweat gleams on his skin, the smell of it mixed with need and lust. He makes weird choking noises and rocks and rocks.

“I want,” he babbles, “I want I want I want.”

“I know, baby, I know.” Yunho works into him, smooth and slick, the lube glistening on his fingers, around Changmin’s stretched hole, and Yunho kisses his ass-cheeks again as he fucks his fingers—three now—deeper inside him.

“I can’t,” Changmin gasps. “Oh, I can’t, I’m—I can’t _breathe_ —”

“Easy,” Yunho whispers, withdrawing his fingers and stroking them in wet circles over Changmin’s overheated skin. “Easy, baby.”

Changmin makes a frantic sound. “Please,” he begs. “Please, Yunho. I need you, I want you.”

“Changminnie, Changminnie.” Yunho dribbles out more lube, slicks himself up and holds his dick against Changmin’s hole, teasing them both for an endless moment, and then he slides on in. 

Changmin clenches around him like he wants to keep Yunho inside forever, and Yunho almost explodes at the grip, smooth and hot and so very, very tight.

“Oh, you want it,” he says, and his voice has gone hoarse and he’s feeling all shuddery as he draws back and pushes in again. “Fuck, baby, you’re so hot and slippery. God, Changminnie, take me.”

Wild and gasping, Changmin shudders. “Yes. Yes. Fuck me hard. Make me feel it everywhere.”

Yunho stuffs into him, hard and fast. He’s not going to last, oh he’s not, he’s not, and he tries to hold back, grips onto Changmin’s hips and pounds into him. “Do it, touch yourself, jerk your cock. C’mon, baby. Come with me. Oh, Changminnie, let me feel you give in.”

“Oh fuck, oh, _oh_.” Changmin is a mess beneath him, frantic and breathless and quivering. “You’re making me come, oh God, oh God please—”

Changmin goes first, tips over into orgasm with an incredible shout of ecstasy. He clamps tight around Yunho’s cock, so fucking tight Yunho think he’s going to pass out, and then pleasure pumps through him, hot and violent and massive, and it’s so huge and all-encompassing it renders him mute.

They collapse together on the duvet, sweaty and too warm and unable to stop touching one another. Changmin squirms around and kisses and kisses him, and Yunho holds onto him, heart filled to overflowing. He can’t tell Changmin he loves him. Not right now, not after sex. It’s a stupid and lame thing to do and it won’t sound sincere. But God, he wants to. He wants to curl all over Changmin and say it a thousand times. He wants to pour it out, rich and sweet, wants to bathe Changmin in his love: 

_I love everything about you, Changminnie: your eyes, your mouth, your skin, the taste of the back of your neck, the inside of your thighs, the way you laugh, the way you care, the way you try to be the person you want to be despite your parents and your experiences; I love your hair, it’s so glossy, it’s like silk through my fingers, and I love your patience and impatience and your silly, sharp sense of humour and I love the way you kiss me, I love your shyness and confidence and you’re so, so clever and I love the way you know everything and nothing because it feels like we’re equal, you never make me feel stupid even when I am being stupid; I love you because you make me feel like myself—_

“Yun?” Changmin asks after a moment. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Yunho says, voice raw in his throat. “I’ll tell you later.”

_Tonight. Tonight. I’ll tell you tonight._


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content note** : Please be aware this chapter contains references to past domestic (verbal, psychological) abuse and as such may be triggering.

By the time they go out for dinner, snow clouds have gathered, heavy-bellied and thick, painted with wide brushstrokes of grey. Changmin looks up at the sky and flashes a grin at Yunho. “Maybe we’ll get snowed in tonight.”

“Maybe it’ll snow all weekend long, and Kyuhyun and Minho can’t get back and it’ll just be us for the whole of next week,” Yunho says. “I hope you can cook, because you already know I can’t.”

“I _can_ cook, actually.” Changmin adjusts his scarf, which is in a shade that he describes as ‘raspberry’ and which Yunho thinks is more like purpley-pinky-grey-ish. “I’m a pretty good cook. Not haute cuisine or anything but I’m good with the basics. My parents’ housekeeper taught me. Maybe I’ll make something for you tomorrow.”

“Not if it involves you putting on any clothes,” Yunho says. “The naked chef. Wasn’t that a TV show?”

“Jamie Oliver.” Changmin smiles. “Except he wasn’t naked.”

“You can be naked.” Yunho moves closer to him as they walk along gritted paths through hard-packed snow. “I’ll do all the chopping and stirring and whatever with the oven if you sit at the table all naked and tell me what to do.”

Changmin presses his lips into a straight line. His shoulders quiver.

“I won’t be distracted,” Yunho says. “Honest. I can be very focused.”

Sputtering with laughter, Changmin dips his head. He flicks the hair from his eyes and gives Yunho a dancing look. “I know how focused you can be and I’m _very_ appreciative.”

“Appreciative enough to be naked?” Yunho asks hopefully.

“We’ll see.” Changmin puts his arm through Yunho’s and they walk together across the length of the campus to the collection of bars and restaurants on the street beyond the main gates. There’s more lights out here, away from the rarefied world of the university, and the glare of streetlamps and the glow of coloured neon in windows is reflected in puddles where the snow has melted. Slush, churned and grey, piles along the gutters and is kicked up by the wheels of passing cars.

Many of the places along here are doing a brisk trade, catering mainly to students. Changmin nods at an American-style bar a little further along the street. “We’re going there.”

The snow has been cleared outside, and half a dozen tables are arranged on the pavement around tall portable braziers. Despite the weather, the tables are full, young men and women drinking and eating, talking and laughing. Music drifts out, the sound sharp in the chill of the night air.

“It seems popular,” Yunho remarks.

“It is,” Changmin says. He takes his arm from Yunho’s and jams both hands in his coat pockets. His shoulders go up, his chin sinking into the huddle of his scarf. “I haven’t been here for a while. I hope the food is still as good as it used to be.”

“I’m sure it is,” Yunho says cheerfully, casting a glance at the dishes the other customers are eating. The food smells hot and spiced and in this weather, that’s all that matters. He bounces ahead and opens the door for Changmin. “After you.”

They go inside, Changmin a couple of steps ahead of him. Yunho glances around for an empty table, looks at the specials board, and then comes up short against Changmin’s back, because for some reason he’s come to a dead stop, a complete halt, and it’s so weird that Yunho bumps against him and says, “Everything okay?”

“Yes.” Changmin turns his head very slightly as if he wants to look at Yunho, but his gaze is fixed to the bar and the colour has gone from his face.

Yunho looks over at the bar, too. There’s about fifteen people standing there, but no one is staring back at them. Even so, Changmin has gone so tense that Yunho can feel the heat of it coming off him like waves. He puts a hand on Changmin’s back, strokes him. “We can go somewhere else.”

“No.” Changmin snaps out of his fugue. He lifts his chin, directs a bright smile at Yunho that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “This is fine. Come on, let’s sit.”

They find a table further back. Changmin takes off his coat and unwinds his scarf from his neck. All the time he keeps darting little glances towards the bar. Yunho opens the menu and reads through it with deliberate slowness, giving Changmin space to compose himself, but by the time the waiter comes over to take their order, he’s even more restless than before.

“What would you like?” Yunho asks, holding the menu out to Changmin.

“I’m not hungry.”

Now that’s bullshit. They’ve been fucking half the afternoon, and Yunho is hungry, and if he’s hungry then Changmin must be starving, so he orders for them both, spicy chicken wings and steaks and fries and salad and a couple of beers, and Changmin just sits there, pale and quiet.

“You’re going to eat, baby, because afterwards I’m taking you bowling,” Yunho says, and when there’s no reaction, he adds, “We’re going to go bowling with the straw bowling balls I made over the last four weeks.”

Changmin blinks, looks at him. “What?”

“Nothing.” A moment of silence. Yunho exhales. “Changminnie, are you okay?”

Colour blooms in Changmin’s face. “I’m sorry. It’s just... It’s fine.” He smiles, and it’s every bit as fake as the stupid plastic flowers on their table in the stupid plastic water, and when Changmin’s gaze slides away again, Yunho turns in his seat to look.

He takes in the whole of the bar area with one glance, really looking this time. There’s fewer people now, a guy and a girl perched on stools; a few younger blokes obviously in a group, noisily changing their minds about what they want to drink; and a good-looking guy maybe a couple of years older than Changmin talking intensely with a much older man.

Okay. So that’s what it is. Finally. _Finally_. Yunho studies the good-looking guy a moment longer then turns back. “Is he your ex?”

Changmin jerks his gaze away. There’s guilt in his eyes, guilt and anger. “Yes.”

Yunho flicks another look at Changmin’s ex-boyfriend then sits forward, leaning his forearms on the table. He smiles and puffs himself up, hoping to make Changmin laugh, and says, “Babe, you did much better on the rebound than he did. That old guy—”

“That old guy is Professor Song,” Changmin says, very quietly, very steadily. He looks at Yunho, expression unreadable. “He teaches the class on Philosophy and Ethics. And for eight months, he was my lover.”

For a moment Yunho can’t do anything but stare, and then he thinks _wait, he’s joking, he can’t mean it, he’s being funny_ , except there’s this horrible sinking feeling in his stomach and Yunho _knows_ , he just knows it’s the truth, and Changmin is looking back at him with such terrible blankness. “No,” Yunho says, and it comes out shocked. “You— He—”

The waiter returns with their food and drinks. Yunho forces himself to smile and say thank you, but he isn’t hungry any more. The sight of the chicken wings makes him feel ill; the sharp-sweet smell of the spices turns his stomach. He stares at Changmin, who seems to have regained his appetite but picks at the fries without any sign of enjoyment.

“He must be twice your age!” Yunho says, keeping his voice low while the waiter is still within earshot.

“He’s fifty-two,” Changmin says.

“No. Oh God, no.” Images flood Yunho’s head, vile images of the professor all over Changmin, _his_ Changmin, that horrible creepy old guy kissing Changmin and touching him and oh God, _fucking_ him, and Yunho makes a noise of disbelief, of disgust. Then he realises, and shit, fuck, he’s going to puke: “He— _he’s_ the one who gave you your perfect first time?”

Changmin nods, very tightly.

Yunho knows he’s overreacting. Desperately he tries to summon back his cool. He can deal with this. It’s a shock, a nasty one, but he can deal. Yeah, they can talk about this and it’ll be fine, he’ll be understanding; except he doesn’t understand, how can he understand, that guy is almost _thirty years older_ and he’s not even attractive, and— 

“Why?” Yunho demands. “Why, Changminnie?”

All that lovely bright confidence that Changmin had displayed earlier, all that happiness and certainty—it’s gone now, just like that, and Yunho knows it’s because of him, because of the way he’s reacting, but shit, how the hell else is he supposed to react? Because now he’s remembering everything else, too—Changmin’s insecurity over his looks and his atrophying shyness, and then Yunho can hear Minho’s voice echoing through his head: _It destroyed Changmin. It absolutely fucking destroyed him_.

“Why?” he asks again.

Changmin lifts his chin, pride and anger slamming into place around him. “Because he was the first man to show me any attention, because he pursued me for months and months, and because I believed him when he told me he loved me.”

“Oh, baby.” Yunho crumples. He doesn’t want to believe any of this. The rational part of his mind is ordering all the facts and presenting them to him in tick-box format and reminding him that it’s not a crime and it’s certainly not unusual for a student to have an affair with a professor, and it’s even more not-unusual for a professor to chase after a young, emotionally vulnerable student, especially a clever student, a book-smart student deprived of affection and struggling with his shyness and trying to fit in, trying to find his identity without any care or attention from his parents, and oh _fuck_ Minho was right, Changmin didn’t stand a chance. He may as well have had a target painted on him.

The shock is fading now, replaced by a surge of anger. Yunho turns and takes another look. He tries hard to see the professor through Changmin’s eyes, tries to imagine what it would be like to be flattered and courted by someone older and wiser, with lots of letters after their name and a whole bunch of useful contacts in academia. Just because he’d never have done it—although in a way he had with his collection of older men, but the oldest had only been ten years older, not thirty... 

Yunho frowns. He’s being judgemental and he hates himself for that, because the age gap shouldn’t matter; it’s the position of trust that’s been abused here, and that’s where the difference is. He’s never had anyone take advantage of him. Not even with his first time. Sure, he’d been stupid about it, but it had been his choice to go with that guy. And with every casual fuck and short-lived relationship since, he’d gone into it with his eyes wide open, offering up everything on the off-chance that this time it would stick, and he’d known what he was doing, he’d accepted that he could lose just as much as he could gain, and _that’s_ the difference.

“He took advantage of you,” Yunho says.

“I wanted to be in love.” Changmin’s tone is absolutely flat. “I wanted to know what it was like, so I could... I don’t know, so I could understand it and put it to one side and get on with my life.”

“It’s not something academic!” Yunho stares at him. “Love is something you feel with every part of your being. It’s everything.”

“Maybe for you,” Changmin says, kind of dismissive, and oh, that hurts, it’s as painful as if someone took a knife and flayed the skin off Yunho’s back and sliced through the muscle into bone.

“Not just for me,” Yunho says, his heart pounding. “I can feel it in you. All through you. Not just when we make love. It’s in you like music.”

Changmin’s shoulders are scrunched tight. He doesn’t show any sign of having heard what Yunho just said. Instead he seems to be looking inwards, into some vast dark tunnel of memory. “He told me it was real and so it became real, right up until the moment when it wasn’t, and then I knew I was a fool and I swore I’d never make the same mistake twice.”

Yunho doesn’t know what to say. Again his rational mind is handing him diagrams and PowerPoint presentations explaining how and why and all that shit, but the emotional part of him is running in circles screaming _WHAT THE FUCK_. And then he realises he’s making this all about him, and that’s wrong, he should be thinking of Changmin, because he’s the one that’s been hurt, and now Yunho wants, no, _needs_ to put this right. 

He starts to get up from his seat.

“No,” Changmin says, low and urgent.

“I just want to talk to him.”

Changmin grabs hold of his hand. “Yun, _no_.” 

Yunho stares at the tight grip Changmin has on him and sits back down. His head is thumping, tension gathering at the base of his skull. He forces a smile. “Okay. I won’t. If you’re sure.”

“Positive.” Changmin gives him a wary look. “I don’t want there to be a scene. Let’s just ignore him and eat our dinner and talk about something pleasant. For example... how’s Jessica?”

“She’s good.” Yunho clings onto the change of subject with relief. “She and Donghae are really close now. It’s getting serious. Donghae’s almost a different guy. It’s funny, he always said he’d never settle down, but now...” 

He tails off when he realises Changmin’s attention has wavered. Unable to help himself, he glances over his shoulder. The good-looking guy has left, and the professor is staring at them. No, staring at Changmin. And smiling, in a really smug, creepy way.

Yunho’s hackles rise. He makes a noise low in his throat.

“Don’t,” Changmin says as the professor heads their way. “Please don’t.”

He won’t. He won’t do anything. Yunho takes a swig of his beer. He can’t even taste it. He sits there and watches Changmin, watches him buckle on his defences finished off with a crown of I Don’t Care, and he admires how utterly composed and beautiful and perfect Changmin looks, how cold.

The professor saunters over, rests one hand on the table. “Little Shim Changmin,” he says, his round plummy voice emphasising the word _little_ in all its full, patronising glory. “How lovely to see you after all this time.”

Changmin barely acknowledges him. “Professor Song.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you for a while, dear boy.” The professor leans in, slate grey hair flopping across his forehead, his features sharp. “I had the most _interesting_ discussion with your supervisor just recently. Would you believe, the external examiner on your dissertation committee turns out to be a _very_ good friend of mine...”

Anger flares in Changmin’s eyes. He meets the professor’s gaze, holds it. “It’s such a small world. But you would never be as underhand as to attempt to ruin a student’s career, would you, Professor?”

“I don’t know,” the professor says, showing his teeth in a twisted representation of a smile. “Would you attempt to ruin the career of an eminent member of staff by reporting him to the Dean?”

Changmin doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look away. “I would if he’d done something wrong.”

“Oh, but I didn’t,” the professor says, very quietly, and there’s real menace in his voice now. “I did _nothing_ wrong.”

“Not legally,” Changmin says, keeping his head up, putting steel in his tone, “but morally, ethically—a concept with which you should be familiar, _Professor_.”

Surprise crosses the professor’s face, and then he lets out a bark of angry laughter. “And so the student presumes to instruct the teacher. How arrogant, Mr Shim. How very, very arrogant.” His hand clenches into a fist on the table, and splotches of colour appear on his cheekbones.

Yunho can’t keep out of it any longer. “I think you’d better leave.”

The professor deigns to look in his direction, acts as if he’s noticed him for the first time. “And you are?”

“Changmin’s boyfriend.”

“Well, now. Changmin’s boyfriend. How sweet.” The professor looks him up and down as if making a judgement.

Yunho doesn’t care if the guy insults him, but if he insults Changmin or threatens him again, that’s a different matter.

“I think you could do better, Changmin’s boyfriend,” the professor drawls at last. “You seem like a man of considerable appeal. Someone who deserves an exciting bedfellow, not some repressed little mouse. If truth be told, Changmin was quite the worst lover I’ve ever had. He scarcely knew what to do with himself, the poor lad was so excruciatingly shy. Even after several months’ tuition, he was still like a block of wood. He’d just lie there and—”

Yunho leans forward, temper snapping. “Changmin is passionate and inventive and fucking amazing in bed.”

Changmin turns his head, hiding his face.

“Indeed.” The professor smiles, insincere and cruel. “Obviously he responds more enthusiastically to a rough embrace, although I must say when I tried that with him, he cried and begged me to stop, and—”

“Stop,” Changmin says, and he’s gone white. “Stop this right now.”

This is out of control. Yunho doesn’t want to know what the professor meant by that last dig; or at least he does, but he doesn’t want to know here and now, not when Changmin looks so upset. Trying to be calm and rational, Yunho takes out his wallet and tucks some money beneath their mostly untouched food, then gets to his feet. “Changminnie, let’s go.”

Flashing that creepy, sleazy smile again, the professor blocks Changmin from leaving the table. Stands in front of him, then puts out a hand and rests it on Changmin’s shoulder, pushing him back down into his seat. “Please don’t go on my account. I’m sure we can find _lots_ to talk about.”

Yunho takes a deep breath. “Get your hands off him.”

The professor gives Yunho a supercilious look. “Are you really going to stop me, Changmin’s boyfriend?”

“Yes,” Yunho says, and before he can think better of it, before he can think of anything at all except giving in to his blind rage, he swings back, puts all his weight behind his fist, and punches the professor.

There’s a spurt of blood, a shocking bright red that spatters across the tablecloth and the uneaten food. The professor makes a weird sound and lifts his hands to his face. His nose looks broken as all fuck. Yunho doesn’t care. A burst of triumph fills him, fierce and primal, and then he’s aware of the sudden silence around him, the hush beneath the jaunty pop song that’s playing on the sound system, and then the professor staggers backwards, yelps out, “Shit. _Shit_ ,” and someone, somewhere, applauds, someone else whistles, and then the whole bar is awash with chatter and comment, getting louder and louder.

Yunho flexes his fingers. His knuckles hurt. Adrenalin courses through him. He did the right thing. Changmin will be so pleased.

Except Changmin doesn’t look pleased. He looks absolutely furious.


	14. Chapter 14

Next morning, Yunho wakes on the couch beneath a blanket with a crick in his neck and an ache that has nothing to do with how badly he’s slept. The morning is dull and grey, bending cold light from the walls of the living room. Half of the cushions are on the floor. He’s fully dressed in what he was wearing last night before everything turned to shit. He’s even wearing his shoes, for fuck’s sake. Changmin’s going to scold him for that.

Or not, because Changmin hadn’t said more than two words to him when they got back last night. He’d just gone into his room, emerged with a blanket and a pillow and put both on the couch, then he’d returned to his room, closed the door, and locked it from the inside.

Yunho shifts under the blanket, his stomach twisting with irritation and guilt and worry. That creepy professor shouldn’t have touched Changmin. Shouldn’t have said all that shit. It’s not Yunho’s fault. Except maybe it is. He didn’t have to punch the guy. But he did, but that’s only because he was trying to help, but...

He rolls over, and the woollen blanket drags at his knuckles. It stings. That small pain is enough to make him groan at his stupidity. He yawns, scrubs his other hand through his hair. Things feel odd and unbalanced, as if he’s hung over. But that’s okay. He can fix this. He just has to wait for Changmin to wake up and then they can talk about what happened, and Changmin will understand, and it’ll be fine, everything will be great, and they’ll live happily ever after and never fight again, and Yunho will never punch another professor as long as he lives.

He groans again. Fuck, he’s an idiot. He needs to put this right.

Kicking off the blanket, Yunho sits up, and then he exclaims in shock when he sees Kyuhyun sitting on the floor with his back to the wall, a magazine open across his knees and a mildly curious expression on his face.

The sight is so unexpected that Yunho blurts out, “What are you doing here?”

Kyuhyun blinks. “I live here.”

“You and Minho were supposed to be away all weekend.”

“I came back.” Kyuhyun has a real gift for speaking the obvious. “What are you doing there?”

Yunho tries to settle into a more comfortable position. His lower back aches, a warm streak of pain that’s trying to crawl up his spine to join his tense shoulders. “I hate sleeping on the couch.”

“Guess you had a fight with Changmin,” Kyuhyun says. “That sucks.”

Yunho retrieves the blanket and scuffles it over his feet. “I met his ex last night.”

“Oh.” Disapproval crosses Kyuhyun’s face. “That really sucks.”

“I punched him,” Yunho says.

“Changmin?”

“The ex.”

“Awesome.” Kyuhyun nods in satisfaction, then pauses, a frown furrowing his brow. “Bet Changmin didn’t like that.”

“That’s why I’m on the couch.”

“Got it.” 

Kyuhyun keeps on looking at him, and now Yunho has the feeling that he’s being judged. There’s a long silence. Yunho listens for movement from beyond the living room door, some sort of sign that Changmin is awake and will come in at any moment so they can talk about this. But he hears nothing, and Kyuhyun is still staring at him, eyes narrowing and mouth pursing like he’s sucking on really sour lemons.

“That guy dumped Changmin in a really obvious and humiliating way,” Kyuhyun says. His gaze flickers to the door then he looks back at Yunho and lowers his voice a little. “There was this rumour that the professor made kind of a habit of it. Seducing his students and all that. I heard from a friend of a friend of someone I sat next to in class. I told Minho and we both tried to tell Changmin but you know what he’s like, he gets stubborn sometimes and he’s really bad at talking about emotional shit and he told us to fuck off, said he knew what he was doing. Said the guy loved him. Stupid, huh? I mean, Changmin is smart. Not as smart as me or anything, but all the same, he’s not thick, but where that guy was concerned he was as dense as a post.”

Yunho stares at Kyuhyun. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

Kyuhyun shrugs. “Not mine to tell, bro. Only telling you now because you’re out here and he’s in there, and I kind of think he should have told you ages ago but he’s kind of proud and he probably thought you’d think he was an idiot for falling for that guy. Which he was, but whatever.”

“Yeah.” Yunho exhales and sits back against the sofa. “I wouldn’t have thought less of him, though. I could never do that. And besides, I have far more romantic disasters behind me than he has.”

“Different way of dealing, I imagine.” Kyuhyun closes the magazine and puts it on top of a heap of DVDs, then hugs his knees. “Also, I bet none of your exes ever humiliated you in public. Like in front of the whole university public. Almost the whole university. Lots of people in a student bar, anyway. That professor really got off on it. Power-tripping egomaniac asshole. He stood there and just threw all this shit at Changmin. Listed all the things Changmin wasn’t good at. Most of them seemed to be sexual, which is weird because you guys are at it all the time so he can’t be that crap in bed. And he said Changmin was odd-looking, too. I mean, he’s lanky and his hands are kind of big and all that but I don’t think he’s odd-looking, do you? Don’t answer, I know you don’t, I’ve heard you telling him he’s beautiful. Wouldn’t quite go that far myself, but it’s not like he’s ugly or anything...”

Yunho wants to clutch his head. “Kyuhyun.”

“What? Oh yeah. So anyway, after the break-up, Changmin was like the number one gossip topic for the rest of the semester. He was so stressed he almost flunked out, but like I said, he’s stubborn. In the vac, me and Minho took him to an amusement park and we went camping and it was completely shit, ants got into my sleeping bag and Minho said it was because I kept food in there but what does he know, and it was just the worst holiday ever, but Changmin started smiling again and so it was worth it. And that’s why he hates people talking about him like we’re doing now.”

“Oh God.” Yunho tries to untangle the useful parts of the conversation from the dross. “Oh fuck, I just made everything worse last night.”

“Ah,” Kyuhyun says. “You punched the professor in public?”

“In a bar.”

“A bar full of people?” Now Kyuhyun frowns. “Why couldn’t you have waited until you were outside?”

“He was insulting Changmin. He said all this awful stuff and then he grabbed him and...” The red heat of the moment rises up again, fierce and angry. Yunho swallows it down. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“No shit.” They’re quiet for a moment, and then Kyuhyun says, “Minho would know what to do. Maybe I should call him. Ask him to come back here.”

The idea of further guidance counselling from Kyuhyun and Minho fills Yunho with horror. “Thanks, but I think Changmin and I need to talk this one out ourselves.”

Kyuhyun sighs and gets to his feet. “Can’t believe you humiliated him in public. That’s so not on, dude. Thought you were a good boyfriend.”

“I am,” Yunho says. “I _am_.”

Kyuhyun snorts and bends to pick up his magazine.

The living room door opens with a decisive snap. Changmin comes in, dressed in scruffy pale jeans and a long sloppy black sweater that reaches mid-thigh. He looks pale, his hair a mess and his eyes tired and red. There’s an aura of spikiness around him, so strong that Yunho can practically see spines and thorns, and he looks determined, as if he’s spent all night rehearsing what he wants to say.

Except that all goes out the window when he sees Kyuhyun. The light of battle fades in Changmin’s eyes, and he says, “What are you doing here?”

“We’ve already been through all that.” Yunho stands up and faces Changmin. It feels a bit too aggressive, so he busies himself with something non-combative, like folding the blanket onto the arm of the sofa and setting the pillow on top just so. Only then does he look up and say, “We need to talk.”

Changmin crosses his arms. “Not in front of Kyu.”

“Don’t mind me,” Kyuhyun says, not moving.

“We should’ve talked last night,” Yunho says, taking a few steps around the couch until there’s no physical barrier between him and Changmin except for the invisible wall of _Don’t Touch Me_ that Changmin seems to have erected.

“Oh, I see.” Changmin’s eyes flash. “So now it’s my fault.”

“Changmin—” Yunho darts a glance at Kyuhyun, wishing he’d piss off and leave them to it, but Kyuhyun seems to have plastered himself to the wall like an ornament, clutching his magazine with both hands as he watches the back and forth of this discussion which feels like it’s sliding horribly, inexorably, towards an argument.

“You humiliated me last night.” Changmin sounds calm, aware of the impact of his words. “Can you understand that?”

Yunho takes a breath. He has to be really careful from here on in. Has to think before he speaks, but not think too long, because shit happens when he does that. “Yes,” he says, “and I’m sorry. But I only understand because Kyuhyun told me what happened between you and that bastard. Why didn’t you tell me? Why _couldn’t_ you tell me?”

Changmin lifts his chin, armours himself in pride even as it crumbles to dust around him. “I didn’t want you to think I was pathetic. I hate myself for falling for him, for believing all his bullshit lies. He made me think I was special and I wasn’t, I was just some idiotic little fool too stupid to realise I was being used.”

“You’re not pathetic,” Yunho says. “You just wanted to be loved. I get that, I really do. Especially going with an older guy. Kind of a father figure type, because with your parents and all that, it must be—”

“My parents?” Changmin has gone very still. “What have they got to do with anything?”

Oh, shit. Yunho tries to back-pedal, splashing through uncertainty. “You’ve never really mentioned them, so I—I...”

“What? You assumed that my parents were just like yours?” Colour slashes across Changmin’s cheekbones, angry and hectic. “You assumed we were both the same?”

“No, I...” Yunho knows he’s crashing and burning. Shit, he must be desperate, because now he’s looking at Kyuhyun for help. 

Changmin sees it and turns on his friend. “Did _you_ tell him about my parents?”

Kyuhyun shakes his head very fast. “But maybe Minho did.”

Fuck, this is getting out of control. Yunho tries to drag the conversation back to the relevant points. “You weren’t pathetic, okay? And you’re not pathetic now. It’s not pathetic to fall in love.”

“It is when you can’t stop it, when it’s too much, when it starts to hurt—”

“Changminnie...” Yunho knows they’re not talking about the professor any more. This is about them. Christ, the very _idea_ that he’s caused Changmin pain... He steps forward, reaches out, desperate to make this all better.

“No.” Changmin pulls away, so rigid he looks like he’ll shatter at any moment. He grits his teeth, forces out: “None of this was real. The way we met—it was just a stupid fantasy, a crazy dream. It shouldn’t have been more than that.”

Yunho doesn’t want to hear this. “It should. It should be forever, Changmin.”

Changmin shakes his head. There’s anger in his eyes now, as if he’s trying to bury the upset and be rational. As if one could ever be rational about love.

“This should be easy,” Kyuhyun says, sounding genuinely confused. “Why are you both making it so hard?”

“Tell you what, I’ll make it easy,” Yunho snaps. “I’ll leave.”

“Sure. Go on.” Changmin flings the words at him, hurls them like bitterness and anguish. “I knew this would never work. I knew I shouldn’t have called you. I should have just left it. Should’ve kept it at that one perfect day, but I wanted more, I wanted—” He stops, distraught, his breaths splintering. “I should have known better. I _did_ know better, that’s what’s so fucking awful about this. I fell for it twice, and that makes me a fucking idiot.”

Yunho had had no intention of leaving, had only thrown it down to force a reaction and break the impasse, but now fury and disbelief lash at him. “You’re comparing me to that bastard asshole we saw last night? What the _fuck_?”

“I asked you,” Changmin shouts, “I _told_ you not to start anything! I was handling it!”

“No, you weren’t!”

Changmin’s shoulders slump. “I was. It was you that wasn’t.”

That gives Yunho pause. Everything turns sideways, just fractionally, and his perception shifts, click-click, and he realises it’s true. His head pounds. Emotion twists and twists inside him. He takes a deep breath. “Is it wrong of me to care so much?”

The look Changmin gives him is brutal. “Yes. When you act the way you did, yes. I needed to deal with it. Me, not you. Instead you took it away from me, just like he did.”

Dizziness spirals through Yunho, rage and misery trying to choke him. “I am nothing like him. Nothing. I just wanted to protect you.”

“From something that already happened!” Changmin lifts his hands, frustrated. “You can’t do that. You can’t undo things, remake things. I am not a fucking car. You can’t fix me.”

“No,” Yunho says, his heart seemingly trying to climb out of his throat, “because you’re already perfect.”

Changmin is silenced. Stunned. His eyes glitter, sheened with tears. “Get out,” he says, so quiet it’s barely audible. He’s trembling. He lifts his chin, white-faced with fury. “ _Get out_.”

Yunho blunders across the room, a single fierce note of agony shrieking through his head.

“Bro,” Kyuhyun shouts. He sounds panicked. “Yunho, wait!”

Yunho wrenches open the front door. He slams it behind him when he leaves.

*

He can barely see straight. Yunho staggers down the stairs, legs like rubber, heart thrashing like a trapped animal. He almost unbalances, tumbles faster and faster as gravity snatches at him, and then he catches himself against the banister on the second floor. He hangs there, staring straight down. The fluorescent lights flicker and buzz. A cold draught reaches upwards and strokes over his face.

His head swarms with rage and disappointment. He wants to put his fist through the wall. He wants to go back upstairs and fuck some sense into Changmin. But he can’t, he _can’t_ , because Changmin doesn’t want him.

The enormity of what he’s lost hits him then, and he sinks to the floor. He curls up on the staircase and rests his head against the railings.

Yunho sits there, waiting, hoping that Changmin will come after him. 

He doesn’t.


	15. Chapter 15

To his credit, the first thing that Donghae says when Yunho turns up at his door is not “I told you so,” but “Let’s get drunk.”

It takes almost two hours before Yunho can talk about it. At the second place they go to, Donghae tries to get him to eat by ordering a plate of something-or-other that makes Yunho want to heave just looking at it. He shoves it away. “Not hungry.”

“Fine. Don’t come crying to me tomorrow when you have the mother of all hangovers.” Donghae eats the food instead. “Pacing myself, bro. You need to learn how to do that.”

Even though Yunho’s sure that Donghae wasn’t being metaphorical, the comment slices at him. Guilt and anger and self-pity overwhelm him. “I tried, bro, I really tried. I did everything for him. He wanted space and I gave him that, too. I’d give him the fucking moon if I could. I just want him. Want to protect him.” Yunho bangs his fist on the table then turns his hand and stares at his fingers. “He was hurt.”

Donghae carries on eating. “You’ve been hurt, too. And me. And just about everyone else in the fucking world. Doesn’t mean you need to fix it.”

“I do,” Yunho says. “I do.”

“Bro.” Donghae leans across the table, expression serious. “Yun. He isn’t you. He’s himself. It’s taken me years to get used to your weirdness and I’m just your mate. You can’t expect him to get you right away just because the two of you fuck every five minutes. You gotta stop trying to manage people. Let them come to you.”

Yunho nods, gaze unfocused as he stares at the bottles behind the bar. What Donghae said seems to make some sense, but it also scares the shit out of him. “What if he doesn’t?”

“Then you move on,” Donghae says, finishing the food.

“Thought you’d say ‘then he’s a moron’.”

Donghae screws up the paper napkin and gives Yunho a steady look. “Changmin may be many things, but a moron is not one of them.”

The remark throws Yunho even more off-kilter. “Hae, do you like him?”

“Yeah. I thought he was good for you.” Donghae drops the napkin onto the plate and gets up. “Come on. Now we can start the serious drinking.” 

By one-thirty in the morning they’re both very drunk and are running out of options on where to go next. Donghae says they should go dancing so they can sweat off most of the alcohol. This seems like the most awesome plan ever invented, and Yunho announces that they’ll go to a gay club because the music is always better there and it’s probably still Happy Hour. 

Donghae has never been comfortable going to gay bars, too convinced that every man in the place will be panting after his body, but this time he follows Yunho without comment. Only the slight tensing of his shoulders reveals his uncertainty, but that soon fades when he discovers that yes indeed, Happy Hour is still on. His spirits lift further when he realises there are girls standing around and drinking and dancing and making out with each other.

“Oh yeah,” Donghae says as he stares at two girls kissing against a wall, one with her hand up inside the sparkly sequinned camisole the other girl is wearing. “Why didn’t I think of this before?”

“Need a drink,” Yunho says. His vision is tunnelling, helped along by the darkness and the strobes across the dance floor. Most of his effort goes into staying upright as he lurches towards the bar. A bunch of people call out greetings, and he remembers to smile and says stuff back even as the faces and their words all blur together beneath the pounding beat of the music.

Yunho props himself up at the bar, head swimming in that nice, relaxed way. He’s reached that state of mind where nothing can hurt him. He’s been here before and it’s _safe_. All he has to do is maintain the bubble surrounding him, and that’s easy enough to do. Just keep on drinking, keep all focus on staying afloat.

Donghae gets the first round in. At some point in the evening they’d decided to try a new drink with every round. They’ve exhausted all the varieties of beer on sale and have gone through six types of flavoured vodka and are now well into strange liqueur territory. There’s a bottle of something lurid and green, so Donghae orders two of those. It looks pretty in the glass, but it tastes of rancid melon. Yunho drinks it anyway.

“Look at those girls. I’m not even sure those outfits pass as underwear.” Donghae is more interested in the dance floor action than in the rancid melon drink, so Yunho steals his and swallows it down. 

Donghae doesn’t even notice. “Bro, those girls are seriously hot. Wonder if they’d like to come back to mine and give me a show. I’m going to ask them.”

This sounds like a really bad idea. Yunho grabs at Donghae’s arm to stop him from making a total twat of himself. “Wait. What about Jess?”

“It’s not cheating if you’re just watching,” Donghae says. “Doubly not cheating if you’re watching lesbians.” 

His logic seems sound. Yunho nods, amazed at how wise Donghae is tonight. “That’s okay then. But I still think Jess won’t like it. And I like her, so if you make her sad I might have to punch you, and that would make me sad, so...” Yunho frowns. “Just don’t think you should do it, dude.”

Donghae sighs. “Bro. Your wallowing is making me doubt my sexuality. I’m starting to think your hair looks nice like that. It’s freaking me out, mate. I need to talk to a girl in the next thirty seconds. Don’t go anywhere, all right?”

Signalling to the bartender for another of the rancid melon drinks, Yunho watches Donghae go over to the two girls. They seem happy to dance with him, and then he’s leaning close and probably making his stupid proposition. Oh man, Donghae is so going to get his face slapped or he’ll get a knee in the balls. But no, the girls don’t appear shocked. They start laughing instead. Donghae looks sheepish, but he’s grinning all the same, and when the music shifts upbeat, they all dance together without any hint of flirtation or suggestiveness.

Yunho snorts and turns back to the bar. The rancid melon drink is so green. It’s kind of hypnotic, how green it is. It’s like spring leaves or summer grass or something that’s just as green. Frogs. Cat’s eyes. Though sometimes they can be yellow or blue. Yunho tries to think of more green things. He tilts the glass and watches the liqueur sway from one side to the other. Green is such a weird colour. This seems to be a very profound realisation, though he doesn’t know why. He must ask Donghae about it.

A guy comes and sits on the bar stool next to him. “Hello.”

For a single, heart-stopping moment, Yunho thinks it’s Changmin. Everyone else he knows says _hey_ or _hi_ or _yo_ or _what’s up_. Only Changmin says _hello_ , so polite and with that low, posh voice. A bolt of desperate hope goes through him, and Yunho turns so fast he almost slides off the stool. Then he realises it’s not Changmin, it’s just some random guy, and it’s like his heart breaks all over again.

The guy smiles. “You look sad,” he says. “Maybe I can cheer you up.”

Yunho knows that no one will ever be able to cheer him up ever again, but this guy seems genuinely concerned for Yunho’s well-being, and that’s so nice and kind. He pushes his drink towards the guy. “Would you like some rancid melon? It’s green.”

“No, thanks.” The guy smiles again. “What happened to make someone like you so down?”

“I happened to myself,” Yunho says, because that pretty much covers it. The guy’s smile wavers. Obviously none of that made sense, so Yunho tries again. “I think my boyfriend dumped me. No. I dumped myself before he could do it. No. He told me to leave. No. Yes. _Shit_.”

“So you’re all alone?” the guy asks, moving closer.

Yunho glances out at the dance floor. “No, I...”

Donghae notices, says something to the girls, then leaves the dance floor and comes over to stand next to Yunho. “Making new friends?”

The guy leans away, looks Donghae up and down. “Well, hello there.”

“Forget it. I’m straight.” Turning his back to the guy, Donghae takes Yunho’s arm. “Bro, time to go.”

“We just got here,” Yunho protests.

“Over an hour ago.” There’s a strange expression on Donghae’s face. Concern, maybe, but it’s mixed with anger. “C’mon, dude, you know you turn into a pumpkin as soon as the clock strikes three.”

Yunho doesn’t know why Donghae is angry with him. “Just a bit longer,” he says. Maybe Donghae is bored. Yeah, that must be it. Yunho doesn’t want to make him bored. “You can go home. I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, right. The last time I saw you this drunk, you stole a shopping trolley and tried to go drag racing in it.”

Yunho remembers that. He grins. “Good times.”

“You were in hospital for a week, you dozy twat.” Donghae tries to heave him up off the bar stool. “Christ, when did you gain weight?”

“The weight of my misery,” Yunho slurs, and starts laughing.

“Fucking idiot,” Donghae says, but there’s no heat in it.

“I can look after him if you need to leave,” the random guy says.

“Yeah. Bet you will.” Donghae gives him the kind of glare that would strip paint. “The last thing he needs is someone taking advantage of him.”

The guy narrows his eyes, then tosses his head. He leans forward again and pats Yunho’s thigh. “If you shake off your guard dog, I’ll be over there. Don’t wait too long.”

Yunho waves him goodbye. It seems like the polite thing to do. When he tries to put his elbow back on the bar, he misses and pitches sideways.

With a huff, Donghae catches him. “The things I do for you.”

“Hae.” Yunho rests his head against Donghae’s chest, breathing in sweat and cologne and familiarity. “You love me.” 

“Yeah, you stupid bastard.” Donghae scruffs his knuckles through Yunho’s hair, then gently pushes him away. “Never doing that again, bro. Your gayness must be catching. Let’s go before I start dancing to Donna Summer and getting excited about soft furnishings.”

Yunho snorts and wobbles to his feet.

The night is very dark, with one of those velvet skies that look so touchable. The buildings seem to totter and loom, though maybe that’s just him. Cars drive past, their tyres making that streaming noise as they go through slush and puddles. Yunho’s breath puffs into the cold air. It’s not cold enough to sober him up, but it makes things snap into sharper focus. They’ve gone three blocks when Yunho stops and says, “That guy was hitting on me.”

Donghae turns. “Want me to give him a medal or something?”

“No. I...” Yunho blinks. The world seems to spin. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Mate, you really don’t want me to make a list.” 

“No.” Moving slowly, carefully, Yunho sits down on the pavement. Donghae tells him to get back up because he’s sitting in the snow. That doesn’t matter. He likes snow. It’s white and soft and it reminds him of when he was a kid, when he and his dad would go outside and build things. Not snowmen, because everyone did that, but snow monsters, like dinosaurs with smiley faces, and they’d stay out until it got dark and his mum would call them inside and—

Yunho lies down in the snow and closes his eyes.

“Christ.” Donghae crouches beside him. “I am not carrying you.”

“S’nice down here.” Yunho gazes up, his vision swimming. “Look at the stars.”

“Those are streetlights.”

“Same thing.”

With a sigh, Donghae shuffles around and sits in the snow with him. They stare up at the sky.

“I’m drunk,” Yunho says after a while.

“Jung, your powers of observation are truly top-notch tonight.”

“That guy was _hitting_ on me.”

Silence. Yunho wishes it would snow again. Snowflakes look so pretty dancing past the sodium glow of streetlights.

“It’d have been easy,” he says, almost to himself. “So fucking easy.”

“Since when have you taken the easy option in anything?” Donghae gets up, holds out a hand. “C’mon, bro. Let’s get you home.”

“Hae.” Yunho grabs hold and hoists himself up. “Why did this happen?”

Donghae gives him a very long look. “Because you’re in love with Changmin.”

Oh God, oh God. Yunho wants to cry. He’s made such a mess of everything. “Never told him. Never told him I loved him.”

“That’s because you’re an idiot.” Donghae strokes snow out of Yunho’s hair, then gives his cheek a slap, hard enough for it to sting. “Tell him tomorrow when you’re sober. No drunk calling, okay? Wait until tomorrow. Everything will look better in the morning.”


	16. Chapter 16

It snows again in the early morning. Yunho wakes on his own couch to a world shrunk tight on itself, the air as brittle as his mood. For the first time in his life he’s glad of a hangover. The pain is a hideous, swinging sway of stabbing knives and spinning nausea. He can’t bear the light, not even a little, and so he finds a pair of sunglasses and puts them on.

The thought of food makes him feel sick. He manages half a cup of strong black coffee before it comes back up, and he hangs over the kitchen sink with the cold tap open all the way as he retches. The purging makes him feel slightly better, and he cleans up and then sits on the floor staring into space for a while as his stomach lurches and flips and eventually settles, and the hangover flatlines into something more manageable.

But with the lessening of physical pain comes the reminder of what he’s lost, and depression sinks around him. Yunho hates feeling so useless. It’s unnatural and wrong and he hates himself for giving in to it, and the excuse of the hangover isn’t good enough. So he forces himself to his feet and goes out into the garage, where a black Mitsubishi Carisma is awaiting a new exhaust system. 

Work will get him through this. It always has in the past. He might not be able to fix his relationships, but he can fix cars. It’s what he does. It’s what he’s good at.

But before he starts on the Mitsubishi, he takes off his sunglasses and rolls open the wide double doors onto the street. The glare of sunlight reflecting from the pristine white snow almost makes him throw up again, the pain drilling through his eyes and shrieking around his skull. Cold air sweeps in, bringing with it a delicate brush of snow. Yunho crouches and dabbles his hands through it, then touches them to his aching temples. The cold is a welcome relief, and he starts to feel more sober.

A couple of cars stand on the forecourt, a few inches of fresh snow blanketing them. From habit he puts out the battered tin sign advertising engine oil, and then he trudges over to his BMW and draws a smiley face in the snow on the front windscreen. There’s no one else around. The roads are blank and pure. It’s like he’s the only person left alive, and there’s a crack in the air, the cold wiping away everything.

Time to start work. He’s not even thinking when he puts on the CD player, and he winces away from the blaring noise and turns down the volume. He drags himself around the garage, collecting together the necessary tools and the trolley, and he drops into the same sort of safe, numbing headspace he’d reached yesterday with the alcohol. It’s like his mind has split into two; one side giving its attention to the task at hand, the other yammering at him to give in to his misery or to call Changmin or to go fetch that bottle of vodka from the freezer and drink himself back into oblivion.

Yunho focuses on the part of his mind concerned with replacing the Mitsubishi’s exhaust system and blocks out the part that’s a mewling, sobbing mess. Working on the car helps, as he knew it would, and after a while he starts to feel the cold. He rolls out from beneath the Carisma and turns on the radiant heaters. A waste of heat, really, since it’ll just flow on past him and out of the garage doors, but whatever. As long as it keeps him even the slightest bit warm, that’s all that matters.

His phone starts ringing. The sound shocks him at first, and then he grabs for it, wrenches it from his jeans pocket, and he’s so desperate to answer it that he drops it on the floor, and the call is cancelled. Yunho swears, retrieves the phone, and checks the display.

Donghae.

Disappointment clutches at his throat and tears all the way down. Yunho sits on the concrete floor and bites his lower lip very hard.

A few moments later, the phone rings a second time. Yunho lifts it without any expectation. It’s Donghae again. Yunho doesn’t want to talk to him, but he supposes he’d better. Otherwise Donghae will keep calling all day and he’ll probably come over, and Yunho doesn’t want company right now.

“How you doing?” Donghae asks, and he sounds rough as all fuck.

“I’m working,” Yunho says.

Donghae snorts. “Of course you are, you stupid bastard. It’s what you always do.” He pauses. The silence drags out. “Heard from Changmin?”

“No.” Yunho hates the way his voice wobbles.

“Mm.” Another long pause. “Well, it’s still early.”

“Yeah.”

“So,” Donghae says after another of those awkward silences, “are you gonna ring him? Tell him what you told me last night?”

Yunho prods at his foot with the end of a spanner. “I don’t know.”

“I think you should.” Donghae takes a breath, rushes on: “I was talking to Jess and she says the same thing. You should tell him.”

“You told Jess?” Yunho isn’t sure how he feels about that.

“Yeah.” Now Donghae sounds defensive. “She knows stuff, all right? She’s good with this sort of thing. She says—she says...” there’s yet another pause, but this time Yunho can hear fevered whispering in the background and realises that Jessica must be right there, “she says don’t be proud.”

That makes Yunho laugh, but it’s without humour. “I’m not the proud one.”

“You kind of are, actually,” Donghae says. “Maybe in a different way to him, but it’s still there. Stubborn wee fucker, that’s what you are. Told you all this last night.”

“You told me that I should stop managing people and let them come to me.”

“That, too.”

“You also told me that jam was evil and that lobsters should be free to form their own system of government.”

Donghae coughs. “Might have been a bit drunk when I said that.” Another pause. “Bro, what are you going to do?”

Yunho exhales. “I’m going to get back to work.”

“Okay,” Donghae says. “Call me later. Just... I hope it works out.”

“Yeah,” Yunho murmurs, and cuts the call. “Me, too.”

He puts his phone on the desk next to the logbook, then slides back under the Mitsubishi and continues with his task. This time it’s harder to block out the needy, pathetic part of his mind, and he wrestles with the impulse to crawl out and just make the damn call already. He lies there on the trolley and clings to a wrench and closes his eyes, so full of longing that it overwhelms even the hangover.

There’s a sound in the garage. The scuff of a foot on the concrete floor. A cough.

Yunho opens his eyes, tension singing through him.

“Hello,” says a voice, low and soft.

Yunho bolts out from under the Mitsubishi. Stops the trolley, gets to his feet. Stares at this incredible vision in front of him. Changmin, standing in the flood of winter sunlight. Changmin, in black skinny jeans and a long grey coat and that stupid raspberry-coloured scarf wrapped around his neck. Changmin, backlit like an angel.

An angel with his cheeks pink with cold, and though he looks tired and there’s dark smudges beneath his eyes and he hasn’t shaved, his gaze is very, very bright. There’s hope in his face, but it’s muted, as if he can’t let it out because it might be dangerous.

“You think I’m perfect,” he says. “I’m not.”

Yunho stares. “I don’t want perfection. I want you.” He pauses, wanting this to be absolutely clear: “I love you.”

Changmin closes his eyes. Sways. “Oh God.”

“Changmin.” Yunho goes to him, reaches out all tentative, fits his hands to Changmin’s shoulders and holds him up. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Yes. I don’t know.” Changmin looks everywhere but at Yunho. He does that thing with his mouth and then he blurts out, “All the way down here I’ve been rehearsing what I wanted to say. Somewhere around Cheonam I’d got it all sorted out. I was going to come in here and say—not what I said. It came out in the wrong order. I meant to start with something else, but seeing the garage like this with the doors open and the cars and the stupid tin sign outside and _you_... Seeing you, I...”

“Changminnie,” Yunho interrupts, unable to bear it a second longer, “what did you want to say?”

“Oh. Yes.” Changmin looks at him now, his big dark eyes huge in his pale face. “I wanted to tell you that I love you.”

Yunho is kind of glad that he’s hanging on to Changmin because his knees go and he might just have fallen down otherwise. Relief pours over him, as clean and bright as the snow. “Yes. Oh fuck, yes,” he breathes, and pulls Changmin against him, holds on tight and buries his face in the stupid raspberry scarf. It smells of the cold and it smells of Changmin, too, it smells familiar, and Yunho holds on and says, “Oh baby, I love you. I’ve loved you for months now. God, I’m so ridiculous I think I fell in love with you when you told me you couldn’t pay for the repairs on your Toyota.”

Pushing closer, Changmin utters a soft, wobbly laugh. “You love me because I gave you a blowjob.”

“No.” Yunho pulls back, looks at him. “I love you because...” and he wants to make a list, a really long list, but the truth is so much more complicated and so much more simple, and so he says, “I love you because you’re you, and you’re perfect for me.”

Changmin sort of flails at that, so Yunho carries on holding him just in case they both fall down. “I’m sorry I said those things,” Changmin says, and it’s as if he can’t stop talking. “Sorry I drove you away. Sorry I shut you out for so long. It wasn’t you I didn’t trust, it was me. I didn’t trust myself with how I felt about you.”

“For such a smart guy, you can be incredibly thick sometimes,” Yunho tells him.

“I know. I’m sorry about that, too.” Changmin offers him a smile. “And I’m sorry for being sorry. This is the last time I’m ever going to apologise to you, I hope you know that. From now on, I’m always going to be right and—and...”

“We’re going to talk to each other,” Yunho says, taking Changmin’s hands and tugging him back towards the desk. “Baby, your hands are frozen. Where’s Blue?”

“I parked her around the corner. Where my Toyota broke down.”

Yunho blinks, suddenly realising. “You drove all this way in the snow.”

Changmin laughs a little. “I have a good car. This mechanic I know made sure it was roadworthy. I trust his work.”

“And do you trust him?”

“More than anything.”

They perch on the desk, sitting close together, still holding hands. “I have some things I need to say,” Changmin begins, and when Yunho nods, he continues: “Just to put Friday night into context—what Professor Song said about being rough with me. I don’t want you to think he hurt me. Not physically. He tried something just the once—said that since I was so repressed maybe he should try tying me up and stuff, and... I hated it. But he didn’t hurt me, you need to know that.”

Yunho feels another rush of relief. If it had been anything else, if it had been even close to some of the things he’d been imagining, he’d have gone back up to Seoul and broken the professor’s hands.

“I reported him to Faculty last year after he split up with me. Kyu and Minho said I should just forget it and move on, but I couldn’t. It’s not a crime for a professor to have an affair with a student, but it does inhabit an ethically grey area, and sometimes, grey areas can bite you in the ass.” Changmin smiles. 

“So I went to the Dean and lodged a complaint, and the Dean wasn’t at all surprised, which made me feel even more of an idiot than I already felt, because despite what my friends had told me, I still believed... but anyway, I made a formal complaint and absolutely nothing happened. Which was what I expected, because he’s tenured and far too eminent to discipline, but I wanted the complaint on file in case the same thing happened to another student.” A dark gleam shines through his eyes. “Besides, I knew the complaint would generate rumours, and rumour is far more insidious than any disciplinary action the university could take.”

Yunho squeezes Changmin’s hands. “You’re amazing.”

Changmin tosses his head, flicks the hair from his eyes. “Talking of amazing... campus gossip reports that Professor Song has gone on sabbatical. It’s almost the end of the semester so that’s not too unusual, but people are saying it’s because he got punched in the face by some hero.”

“A hero?”

A smile, deep and warm, curves Changmin’s mouth. “Campus gossip also reports that I have a really awesome boyfriend.”

Yunho isn’t sure he should accept this kind of praise. “Yeah, I’m so awesome that I got absolutely raving drunk last night. And I was drinking this rancid melon thing that was all green, and this guy hit on me. I totally didn’t realise it at the time because I am the lamest person on the planet and I was, like, practically crying into the rancid melon half the night because I missed you. So, uh, nothing happened. Donghae would have beaten the crap out of me if I’d done anything.”

“Donghae?” Changmin looks startled.

“Good friends will always point out when you’re being a fuckwit. And I was being a fuckwit last night because I was hurt and I wanted to make it even more painful.” Yunho nods. “Because that’s always a good idea.”

Changmin shakes his head, smiling again. “Your method of coping sounds slightly less lame than mine. Kyu called Minho and he came back, and we all got drunk and played that F1 game and I kept crashing. Even at Korea.”

Yunho laughs, a shaky sound. “It’s a shit circuit.”

They sit quietly for a moment, and then Changmin looks up. “The other thing I wanted to tell you at dinner on Friday night... I’ve been accepted at Chosun. And Cambridge.”

Everything freezes. Yunho doesn’t move.

Changmin takes a deep breath. “I’ve decided on Chosun.”

“Congratulations,” Yunho says, numb, and then it hits him—Changmin said _Chosun_ , not Cambridge, and Chosun is—Chosun is... “Oh baby,” he croaks, reaching out. “Changminnie, come here.”

Changmin grabs at him. They kiss, a drowning, triumphant wave of joy, and they press closer and closer, try to twine around one another, and they almost unbalance, almost topple sideways across the desk. The corner of the logbook digs into Yunho’s thigh, reminding him that this is probably a really bad place to make love to Changmin and that maybe they should go somewhere more private.

“Bed,” Yunho says. “Now.” 

“Wait,” Changmin says against his mouth, “you should lock up, you should—”

“There’s no one here, no one but us,” Yunho says, “and I’m not going to wait.”

They slide off the desk, paper scattering everywhere, and they hustle into the apartment out back. Changmin tries to pull Yunho down onto the couch, but only the bed will do this time; Yunho wants him spread out and gloriously naked, and so he drags Changmin with him, shoves at the door. Thank fuck he’d passed out on the sofa last night; his bedroom smells of sleep and musk and cologne and not horrific drunkenness.

Not that he thinks Changmin would care right now. Not when Changmin is out of his coat and scarf and the rest of his clothes so fast it’s like he’s going for the world speed record. Yunho tries to match him, but he’s distracted by how fucking gorgeous Changmin is, how beautiful with that milky-white skin and those big dark eyes, and he just sort of hurls his clothes at the floor and climbs onto the bed.

“I want you so bad,” Changmin says, his hair spilling around his face and arousal flushing all down his body. “Oh, Yunho, come here and give it to me.”

Yunho makes a deranged sort of noise and flings a dozen things off his bedside table before he finds the lube. Once upon a time he thought patience was a virtue, but fuck that. He almost loses it when Changmin spreads his legs and nudges up against him and says really filthy things like _fill me up, I can’t wait, fuck me really hard, make me beg for more and more and more_ , and oh God, he has to get inside Changmin right now.

They line up, position themselves, all shuddery with want. Yunho pushes inside, one long, smooth, slippery glide, and Changmin arches up, head snapping to one side, and he’s quivering and his mouth is wide open and he’s gasping, and then, so breathy it’s almost inaudible, he says, “Yes. Yes. Yunho.”

Pleasure washes over him, and Yunho struggles to hold himself still, tries not to shove and rut, and God, the sensation almost kills him, the slick, tight heat of Changmin’s body hugging him with that silken grip.

“Oh, baby,” Yunho says, because just about every other word has emptied out of his head, and the only other word he can remember is Changmin’s name, so he says that a few times, too, and Changmin seems to like it, seems to like it a whole lot, because then Changmin says, “Fuck me,” and urges upwards.

Yunho can’t hold back. Need reaches out and catches at him, and he can see it reflected in Changmin’s face. Changmin is trembling, desire like a fury wrapped tight inside, just waiting for the moment to break, and it’s close, they’re both close. Oblivion calls, and Yunho surrenders to it, rolls his hips and rocks into Changmin, does it again and again, slides an arm beneath Changmin’s neck and holds onto him, fucks into him.

Changmin gets both arms around Yunho and holds just as tight, holding him with just about everything he’s got, and this isn’t fucking any more, this is something else, something Yunho doesn’t have the words for, but it’s amazing and awesome and it’s _them_. He drives into Changmin, and Changmin clings so hard he’s leaving bruises, starbursts of pleasure-pain, sweet as anything. Yunho breathes, his head full of Changmin, his taste, his scent, the feel of his skin, his heat, and then Changmin goes all tense around him, makes this incredible sound—“I love you,” over and over, “I love you, I love you”—and Yunho gasps against his throat, finds Changmin’s mouth, kisses him, and they go through it together, delicious and hot and so fucking _right_.

*

They lie together under the rumpled duvet, curled around one another. It’s snowing again, the wet flakes patting gently at the window, and Yunho knows he should get up and close the garage doors and switch off the heaters and lock up, and probably he should make Changmin fetch his car and park it a bit closer, but right now he doesn’t want to move. Everything can wait just a little while longer.

Changmin has his face pressed into the curve of Yunho’s shoulder. His eyelashes make fluttery, ticklish sweeps against Yunho’s skin, and his breaths are soft and warm.

“I’ve been thinking,” Yunho says into the hush.

“Always dangerous,” Changmin retorts, but he’s smiling.

“I’ve been thinking,” Yunho says again, jogging his shoulder to dislodge Changmin from his comfortable position. Not that it works. “I’m going to buy a place closer to the centre of town. Or maybe somewhere out near Chosun. Or maybe somewhere else. I just want a place where we can have a home, you and me and our family of straw animals.”

Changmin lifts his head. “Are you asking me to move in with you?”

“Yeah. I think I am.” Yunho pauses, because maybe Changmin will think it’s too fast, and he says, “Next year. In February, when you start your PhD. Or maybe a bit before that. Whenever you want. When we find a really amazing apartment. Because I don’t think you’d agree to move in with me here.”

“Too right I wouldn’t.” Changmin nuzzles at Yunho’s jaw, licks a tiny wet stripe over his stubble. “Although maybe I would, if certain types of persuasive behaviour were employed to help me overcome my aversion to the dustball under your bed...”

“Hey! The dustball moved out ages ago. I evicted it just for you.” Yunho strokes a hand over Changmin’s arm then pulls the duvet further up. “I promise I won’t cultivate any more dustballs under any type of furniture in our home.”

“All these long-term plans,” Changmin says softly.

“It’s what I want,” Yunho says. “And I want it with you. I want a future we can build towards.”

Changmin lifts his head again, and he looks a little overwhelmed for a moment. “It’s what I want, too. But I still have to do my military service and...”

“Stop trying to put up barriers,” Yunho tells him, smiling. “We’ll cross all those bridges when we get to them. You and me, Changminnie—we can deal with anything.”

“We can,” Changmin agrees, and settles against him once more. “You do realise that the next thing you’ll have to deal with is meeting my parents? Now I finally have a ‘special friend’ to introduce to them...”

“Oh, Changminnie,” Yunho says, gleeful, “I can’t wait to see all your baby photos. Every single one of them.”

“You are not seeing any of them. I’ll burn them first,” Changmin says, but his shoulders are quivering and he snuffles with laughter.

“If you won’t let me see your baby photos, I won’t give you a really awesome Christmas present.” Yunho ruffles a hand through Changmin’s hair. “You want to spend Christmas with me, Changminnie?”

Changmin pretends to think about this. “As long as it’s somewhere warmer than the garage.”

Yunho tucks his free hand behind his head and says airily, “We can take over Donghae’s place. He and Jess are spending Christmas with her parents.”

“Seriously?” Changmin rolls onto his front and lifts up on one elbow.

“I’m sure I’ll be able to convince him.” Yunho grins. “He’s a lot less grouchy these days. He even said he liked you.”

“So...” Changmin opens his eyes wide, all innocent, and strokes a finger down Yunho’s chest, “can we invite Kyu and Minho for Christmas, too?”

Yunho pauses for a heartbeat, then sees the glow of amusement on Changmin’s face. “Sure. We can all go hiking. Six o’clock Christmas morning, we’ll all go up Mudeungsan and watch the sun rise.”

Changmin dips his head, quivering with laughter.

Yunho kisses him. “Or maybe it’ll be better with just the two of us.”

“Yes,” Changmin says with a sigh of contentment. “I think it will.”


End file.
